The Dotames and Castapanas (for Castahanas) here mentioned are described as living back of the Kiowa, between the head streams of the North Platte and the Yellowstone, and were probably bands of the Shoshoni. From this it appears that besides being well supplied with horses, with which they carried on a profitable trade at this period with the tribes on the Missouri, the Kiowa also acted as the trading medium between these tribes and others living in the mountains beyond the Kiowa. The officer suggests the mouth of Cheyenne river as the most suitable place to establish a trading post for them. The Crows are described as having then the same wars and friendships as the Kiowa, excepting that they were at war with the Arikara as well as with the Dakota (Lewis and Clark, 2).
The Comanche are described at this period (1805) under the name of the "La Playes" division of "Aliatans" or "Snake Indians," as inhabiting the plains from the headwaters of the Arkansas, and including the sources of Red river, and extending from the mountains eastward indefinitely. They were a wandering people, claiming no particular boundaries, and, although possessing no guns, were brave and warlike. Their country abounded in wild horses, besides great numbers which they raised themselves (Lewis and Clark, 3).
In his volume published a few years later the explorer, Zebulon M. Pike, states that the Kiowa, estimated by him to number 1,000 men, had in 1803 been driven by the Dakota into the mountains on the heads of the Platte and Arkansas and north of the Comanche, where they were then wandering. They owned immense herds of horses, were armed with bows, arrows, and lances, hunted the buffalo, and were at war with the Dakota, Pawnee, and "Tetau" (here meaning the Ute). In another place he mentions both Ute and Kiowa as living in the mountains of northern Mexico—the present Colorado and New Mexico—the former being more civilized from contact with the Spaniards. He speaks also of meeting, in 1807, a party of Kiowa and Comanche returning from a trading expedition to the Mandan (Pike, 1).
As the names Aliatan and Tetau here quoted from Lewis and Clark, with their variants, have been the cause of much confusion in our western tribal nomenclature, some explanation will not be out of place. Although so unlike in appearance, these appellations are really but different forms of the same word. The Ute of the mountain, region at the headwaters of the Platte and the Arkansas, being a powerful and aggressive tribe, were well known to all the Indians of the plains, who usually called them by some form of their proper name, Yútawáts, or, in its root form, Yuta, whence we get Eutaw, Utah, and Ute. Among the Kiowa the name becomes Íătä(-go), while the Siouan tribes seem to have nasalized it so that the early French traders wrote it as Ayutan, Iatan, or Ietan. By prefixing the French article it became L'Iatan, and afterward Aliatan, while by misreading of the manuscript word we get Jatan, Jetan, and finally Tetau. Moreover, as the early traders and explorers knew but little of the mountain tribes, they frequently confounded those of the same generic stock, so that almost any of these forms may mean Shoshoni, Ute, or Comanche, according to the general context of the description.
As an incident of the war in progress during this period between the Kiowa and the Dakota, we find it recorded on a calendar of the latter tribe, under date of 1814—15, that a party of their people visited the Kiowa camp on Horse creek for the purpose of making peace, but their benevolent purpose was defeated by the occurrence of a sudden quarrel between one of their own men and a Kiowa, which ended by the Dakota sinking his tomahawk into the Kiowa's head, thus bringing the peace negotiations to an abrupt close (Mallery, 3). The story, which well illustrates the uncertainty of Indian temper, has a striking parallel in Grinnell's story of "The Peace with the Snakes" (Grinnell, Blackfoot, 1). The Kiowa camp was at the junction of Kiowa creek with Horse creek, which enters the North Platte from the south in Nebraska, just east of the Wyoming line.
In 1816 the smallpox made terrible ravages among all the tribes in the region of the Red and Rio Grande, being probably communicated from the Spanish settlements. The Comanche especially lost heavily (Morse, 1). The Kiowa suffered in proportion, and their old men speak of this as the first epidemic of smallpox within the memory of their tribe. It is probable, however, that they had suffered in the same way some years before, for we know that in 1801 a Pawnee war party, returning from New Mexico, brought the smallpox home with them, with the result that it spread among the tribes from the Missouri to the coast of Texas. The prairie tribes are said to have lost more than half their population at this time, while the Wichita, Caddo, and others in the south suffered almost as severely (Morse, 2; Lewis and Clark, 4).
In the account of his expedition up the Arkansas in 1820, Long speaks of the Kiowa as wandering with the Arapaho and others over the prairies of Arkansas and Red rivers, and having great numbers of horses, which they traded to the Cheyenne and other northern Indians, who were not able to rear them so easily in their colder and more barren country. He describes a great gathering of tribes in 1815 on the South Platte, apparently about the junction of Kiowa creek in Colorado, a region which he mentions as frequented by the Kiowa, when the Cheyenne came down with goods from the traders on the Missouri to meet and trade for horses with the Kiowa, Arapaho, and "Kaskaia or Bad Hearts," and a party of traders from St Louis (James, Long's Ex., 1). This appears to be the first notice of the Kiowa as living on Red river—which, however, may here mean the Canadian—and is evidence that they were at this time on friendly terms with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, with both of which tribes they were soon after at war. We learn also from this notice that the St Louis traders had already begun to come out to trade with them on the Arkansas, although none were regularly established in their territory until some years later. The "Kaskaias" are probably the Kiowa Apache, or possibly the Wichita.
We come now to the period covered by the Kiowa calendars, the first important event of which is the massacre of a large number of the tribe by a war party of Osage in the early spring of 1833. This led indirectly to the expedition of the First dragoons in 1834, by which the Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, and associated tribes were first brought into official relations with the United States. The massacre and the expedition will be found treated at length in the proper place. When the troops returned to Fort Gibson, in the eastern part of Indian Territory, in August, they were accompanied by a party of one Waco, one Comanche, three Wichita, and fifteen Kiowa chiefs or headmen, of whom the artist Catlin says they were undoubtedly one of the most interesting groups that had ever visited the frontier. Invitations were sent out to the chiefs of all the neighboring tribes to come in to Fort Gibson and meet their visitors from the west. A number responded, and a council lasting several days was held under the auspices of Colonel Dodge of the Dragoons, Indian Agent Major Armstrong, and Indian Commissioner General Stokes, which paved the way for a friendly understanding between the eastern and western tribes, and for both with regard to the United States (Catlin, 1).
A year later, in August, 1835, as a result of the friendly relations thus established, the chiefs of the Comanche and Wichita met the United States commissioners at Camp Holmes, about 5 miles northeast of the present site of Purcell, Indian Territory, and made their first treaty with the government. The principal stipulation was that there should be peace and friendship between the Comanche and Wichita on the one hand, and the United States, Creek, Cherokee, and other immigrant tribes, and the Osage on the other (Treaties).
Owing to a delay in the negotiations, the Kiowa who had attended the meeting became impatient and returned home and consequently were not parties to this treaty, but two years later a full delegation of Kiowa, Apache, and Tawakoni went down to Fort Gibson, where the first treaty between the United States and these tribes was made on May 26, 1837, and was formally ratified the following year. In the document the three tribes are called "the Kioway, Ka-ta-ka, and Ta-wa-karo nations of Indians." The general terms of the treaty are the same as in that previously made with the Comanche and Wichita, namely, peace and friendship, with forgiveness of past injuries, and satisfactory settlement of future disputes that might arise between these western tribes and the Osage, Muscogee (Creek), and citizens of the United States. All the tribes concerned were to have equal hunting rights on the southern prairies as far west as the jurisdiction of the government extended, and citizens of the United States were to have free right of travel to and from Mexico and Texas through the Indian hunting grounds.
There was also a stipulation that if "any of the red people belonging to the nations or tribes of Indians residing south of the Missouri river and west of the states of Missouri and Arkansas, not parties to this treaty," should be found in the country of the Kiowa, they should be kindly treated by them. This was probably intended to refer only to the immigrant tribes removed from the east, as it was hardly to be expected that the Kiowa would act very hospitably toward any stray Dakota or Pawnee who might occasionally visit the Arkansas in search of Kiowa scalps or ponies. There was also a distinct understanding that it was the desire of the government that perfect peace should exist between the Kiowa and their allies and the republics of Mexico and Texas. The usual presents were then distributed and everybody was happy (Treaties).
The peace thus made with the Osage and Creeks was never broken, although in after years relations with the Osage were somewhat strained in consequence of their serving as scouts against the allied southern plains tribes. The promised friendship was also kept with regard to the citizens of the United States until after the annexation of Texas, which the Kiowa and Comanche never ceased to regard as a distinct and hostile government, making a clear distinction between "Americans," i. e., settlers and emigrants from the north or Kansas side, and "Texans," whom they regarded as a different nation and their enemies, in having driven them from their best hunting grounds in violation of treaties and without compensation.
The treaty commissioners on behalf of the government were General Montfort Stokes and A. P. Chouteau, the latter being a member of the noted pioneer trading company. Clermont and Roly McIntosh, head chiefs of the Osage and Creeks, signed, with others, for their respective tribes. Among the witnesses were a number of officers, stationed at Fort Gibson, including, among others, the commanding officer, Colonel Whistler, the noted Captain Bonneville, and Colonel R. L. Dodge, who had led the dragoon expedition. The treaty was signed by ten Kiowa chiefs and principal men, three Apache (whose Kiowa names only are given), and four Tawakoni. Below are given the names of the Kiowa and Apache, as the earliest on record from these tribes, excepting those given by Catlin, together with the proper forms and translations of those which can be identified.
Kiowa
Apache
At this time the Kiowa were located on the upper waters of Arkansas, Canadian, and Red rivers, in friendship with the Comanche and Wichita, who occupied much of the same territory, but usually ranged more to the east and south. They continued to occupy the same general region until confined to their present reservation. Their war parties extended their raids far beyond these limits, particularly toward the south.
Catlin, who saw them in 1834, describes them as a much finer race of men than either the Comanche or Wichita, being tall and erect, with an easy graceful gait, long hair reaching often nearly to the ground, with a fine Roman outline of head, of a type common among the northern tribes, but entirely distinct from that usually found in the south (Catlin, 2).
From the statement of Lewis and Clark already noted, it appears that in 1805, while still located on the North Platte, the Kiowa had as yet no communication with traders, but obtained supplies indirectly through the tribes living farther east. From Pike's narrative, however, we learn that James Pursley, "the first American who ever penetrated the immense wilds of Louisiana," spent a trading season with the Kiowa and Comanche in 1802 or 1803, under engagement with a French trader operating from the Mandan country, and remained with them until the next spring, when the Dakota drove them from the plains into the mountains at the heads of the Platte and Arkansas (Pike, 2). From Long's statement, also previously quoted, we learn that in 1815, the Kiowa having drifted farther south in the meantime, traders from St Louis had begun to ascend Arkansas river to trade with the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and other tribes near its headwaters. From other sources it is apparent that before this time they had had dealings also with the Spaniards of New Mexico. The first regular American trading expedition to the Kiowa country was made in 1834 when, on the return of the visiting chiefs from Fort Gibson, a company of eighty trappers and traders went back with them to their homes on the upper Washita and Red rivers (Catlin, 3). In 1835, shortly after the treaty with the Comanche at Camp Holmes, Colonel Auguste Chouteau built on the same site a small stockade fort, where a considerable trade was carried on with the Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita, and associated tribes until his death three years later, when the place was abandoned (Gregg, 1). The exact location of Camp Holmes and Chouteau's fort was at a spring on a small creek, both still bearing the name of Chouteau, on the east or north side of South (main) Canadian river, about 5 miles northeast of where now is the town of Purcell, Indian Territory. It was a favorite Indian camping ground and was the site of a Kichai village about 1850.
Auguste Chouteau, the descendant of one of the early French founders of St Louis, was the pioneer organizer of the Indian trade in the upper Red river country, as were the Bents, also of French origin, on the upper Arkansas. Under the name of Soto, Chouteau is still held in affectionate remembrance by the Kiowa.
Chouteau's fort on the Canadian was considered to be in Comanche territory. Shortly after the treaty with the Kiowa in 1837, he established what they regard as the first trading post within their own country, on the west bank of Cache creek, about 3 miles below the present Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Tomé-te (Thomas?) is the name by which the Kiowa remember the trader in charge, who, however, did not remain long. Another store was established nearly on the same ground by William Madison (Sénpo-zédalbe, "Terrible-beard") in 1869, after the tribes had been assigned to a reservation. In 1844, William Bent began building trading posts on the South Canadian, in the Texas panhandle, near the principal Kiowa trails. They also traded extensively at various points on the Arkansas until their final removal to Indian Territory.
With the treaty of 1837 and the building of the first trading post in their country, the modern history of the Kiowa may be said to have fairly begun. Their first introduction to American civilization was in 1834, when Dohásän and the other chiefs accompanied the troops back to Fort Gibson, and again in 1837 when they went to the same place for the purpose of making the treaty. Soon afterward arrangements were made by Colonel Chouteau to have a delegation of Kiowa, Comanche, and their associated tribes visit Washington and other eastern cities. A party of chiefs visited Fort Gibson for this purpose in the summer of 1839, but Colonel Chouteau having died during the previous winter, and the season being then far advanced, it was deemed best to abandon the trip, and accordingly they were given some presents and returned to their homes (Report, 1).
In the winter of 1839—40 the Kiowa again suffered from the smallpox, which had broken out in the north in the summer of 1837, nearly exterminating the Mandan, and then swept the whole plains to the gulf. In 1840 they made peace with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, with whom they have ever since been on terms of intimate friendship (see the calendar). They had already made peace with the Dakota, so that they were now on good terms with all the tribes of the plains excepting the Pawnee and Tonkawa, who seem always to have been outlawed tribes, without friends or allies.
In 1841 the Texan Santa Fé expedition passed through the country of the Kiowa. Kendall, the historian of that ill-fated undertaking, describes the tribe as occupying the prairies near the headwaters of Colorado, Brazos, Wichita, and Red rivers, and incorrectly supposes that their hunting grounds had never before been visited by white men. He says that they seemed to be a powerful people, hitherto but little known, owing to the fact that their range was south of the line of the Missouri traders and north of that portion of the Comanche country with which the Texans were acquainted. He speaks of their extraordinary horsemanship, and credits them with the feat, ascribed also to other plains tribes, of throwing themselves to one side of their horses while riding parallel with their enemies in such a way as to conceal and protect their bodies while discharging their arrows directly under their horses' necks. They had then but few guns, and these were ineffective in their hands, but were surprisingly expert in the use of shields, bows, and lances (Kendall, 1). The disastrous encounter of the Texans with the tribe is narrated in the proper place.
The next notable event in Kiowa history is the cholera epidemic of 1849. It was brought from the east by California emigrants, and ravaged all the tribes of the plains. The Kiowa remember it as the most terrible experience in their history, far exceeding in fatality the smallpox of nine years before. Hundreds died and many committed suicide in their despair (see the calendar).
For years the Kiowa and their confederates had been carrying on a chronic warfare against Mexico and Texas, although generally friendly toward Americans on the north. For the protection of the advancing settlements and the traffic over the Santa Fé trail, now amounting to over $2,000,000 annually (Report, 2), it was deemed necessary to end this anomalous condition of affairs. Accordingly, on July 27, 1853, a treaty was negotiated by agent Thomas Fitzpatrick, at Fort Atkinson, on the Arkansas, in Kansas, with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, by which these tribes agreed to remain at peace with both the United States and Mexico, and conceded the right of the government to establish roads and military posts within their territory. In return for these concessions, they were to receive an annuity of $18,000 for a term of ten years, subject to a further extension of five years (Treaties). It is somewhat remarkable that this treaty is not noted on the calendar, neither does it seem to form a subject of conversation among the older men.
Although for obvious reasons the Indians were opposed to the establishment of roads and military posts in their country, the chief difficulty in the way of a treaty was their unwillingness to cease war on Mexico. The proposition to restore their Mexican captives met a prompt and decided refusal. As the Mexican captive element forms so large a proportion of the blood of these three tribes, the remarks of agent Fitzpatrick in this connection are of interest:
The chief difficulty which occurred in negotiating the present treaty was not, however, presented in the article embracing the foregoing points, but in that which contemplates a cessation of hostilities against the neighboring provinces of Mexico and the restoration of prisoners hereafter captured. For a long time these tribes have been in the habit of replenishing their caballadas of horses from the rich valleys and pasture lands which border upon the Rio Grande. Yearly incursions have been made by them far into the interior of Chihuahua and Durango, and they but seldom return without having acquired much plunder, as well as many captives, from the defenseless inhabitants of that country. The name of the Comanche and Apache has become a byword of terror even in the villages and beneath the city walls of those fertile provinces. The consequences of those expeditions are twofold, for while they serve to sharpen the appetite for pillage and rapine, they also tend to keep up the numbers of the tribe. The large herds driven off produce the former result, and the prisoners captured contribute to the latter. The males thus taken are most commonly adopted into the tribe, and soon become the most expert leaders of war parties and the most accomplished of marauders. The females are chosen as wives and share the duties and pleasures of the lodge. In fact, so intermingled amongst these tribes have the most of the Mexican captives become that it is somewhat difficult to distinguish them. They sit in council with them, hunt with them, go to war with them, and partake of their perils and profits, and but few have any desire to leave them. Upon this account the chiefs of the nations refused positively and distinctly to entertain any proposals or make any treaties having in view giving up those captives now dwelling amongst them. They stated very briefly that they had become a part of the tribe; that they were identified with them in all their modes of life; that they were the husbands of their daughters and the mothers of their children, and they would never consent to a separation, nor could any persuasion or inducement move them to abate this position. All that could be accomplished was to make a provision for the future (Report, 3).
Even this much, seems to have amounted to but little, for in the next year we find the same agent-reporting that "so far as I can learn, they have faithfully complied with the treaty stipulations, save one. It is a difficult matter to make them understand that New Mexico now belongs to the United States. They deny ever having consented not to war on Mexicans. They say that they have no other place to get their horses and mules from" (Report, 4).
In the summer of 1854 the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and others of the plains tribes, organized a great expedition for the purpose of exterminating the immigrant tribes in eastern Kansas, whose presence was beginning to be felt in an ominous decrease of the buffalo. Although this was perhaps the largest war party ever raised by the plains Indians south of the Sioux country, being estimated to number 1,500 warriors, they were ingloriously defeated with heavy loss by a party of Sauk and Fox numbering hardly a hundred, the result being due to the fact that the latter were armed with long-range rifles, while their enemies had only bows and arrows. Almost every old man of the Kiowa now alive was in this battle, which is famous among all the tribes of the southern plains (see the calendar).
In the same year, according to Clark, a party of 113 Pawnee was cut off and slaughtered almost to a man by an overwhelming force of Cheyenne and Kiowa (Clark, 19). There is no record of this engagement on the calendars, although several minor encounters with the Pawnee are noted about this time.
In the next few years we find little of importance recorded of the Kiowa beyond concurrent statements of both military and civil officials that they were growing constantly more insolent and unmanageable. In 1856 a war party of nearly one hundred arrived at Albuquerque, New Mexico, having passed through the center of the settlements of that territory, on their way to attack the Navaho. They were turned back by the military commander, committing several depredations as they retired (Report, 5). Two years later another large war party, together with some Cheyenne, passed Fort Garland, Colorado, almost on the great divide, in pursuit of the Ute (Report, 6).
On one occasion, during the distribution of the annuity goods on the Arkansas, when fifteen hundred lodges of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache were encamped along the river, the agent took the opportunity to tell the Kiowa as plainly as possible that if they did not cease their depredations the government would not only withhold their presents but would send troops to punish them. The great chief Dohásän, after listening in respectful silence to the end, sprang to his feet, and, calling the attention of the agent to the hundreds of tipis in the valley below, replied in a characteristic speech:
The white chief is a fool. He is a coward. His heart is small—not larger than a pebble stone. His men are not strong—too few to contend against my warriors. They are women. There are three chiefs—the white chief, the Spanish chief, and myself. The Spanish chief and myself are men. We do bad toward each other sometimes, stealing horses and taking scalps, but we do not get mad and act the fool. The white chief is a child, and like a child gets mad quick. When my young men, to keep their women and children from starving, take from the white man passing through our country, killing and driving away our buffalo, a cup of sugar or coffee, the white chief is angry and threatens to send his soldiers. I have looked for them a long time, but they have not come. He is a coward. His heart is a woman's. I have spoken. Tell the great chief what I have said (Report, 7).
In the winter of 1861—62 the smallpox, brought back from New Mexico by a party of Kiowa returning from a trading trip, again ravaged the Kiowa, Comanche, and other tribes of the plains (see the calendar). To prevent a recurrence of the disease, the government soon afterward took measures for vaccinating the western Indians. In the summer of 1863 a delegation of Kiowa visited Washington and gave permission for the establishment of mail stations along the roads through their country in southeastern Colorado (Report, 8).
The chronic raiding still continued. In 1860 the troops had been ordered to chastise the Kiowa and Comanche, but apparently with little effect. Then came the rebellion, involving all the civilized and partly civilized tribes of the south and reacting on the wild tribes of the plains. At the same time the fugitive hostiles from the Sioux war in Minnesota in 1862, who had taken refuge with their western brethren of the same tribe, helped to increase the ferment. There is evidence also that agents of the Confederacy had something to do with this result. In the fall of 1863 it was learned that a combination had been formed by the Dakota, Cheyenne, part of the Arapaho, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache—all the principal fighting tribes—to inaugurate a general war along the plains in the spring. To meet the emergency, messages were sent out to the different tribes in June, 1864, directing all friendly Indians to repair at once to certain designated military posts, with a warning that all found away from these posts after a certain date would be considered hostile. As it was difficult for troops to distinguish one tribe from another, an order was issued at the same time prohibiting the friendly Indians in eastern Kansas from going out on their usual buffalo hunt upon the plains.
Only a part of the Arapaho, and later some of the Cheyenne, responded and came in. After waiting a sufficient time, Governor Evans of Colorado issued a proclamation in the summer of 1864 designating all Indians remaining out as hostiles, whom all persons were authorized to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever they might be found (Report, 9). In August the agent at Fort Lyon, Colorado, for the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, wrote that "the orders are to kill every Indian found in the country, and I am inclined to assist in carrying the orders into effect" (Report, 10).
The official reports covering the summer of 1864 are full of notices of murders and depredations on the plains. The agent of the Overland Mail stated in August that as a consequence the company had been compelled to abandon all its stations for a distance of 400 miles, while every ranch within the same section had been deserted. He reported that the Indians "arrogantly declare that the land belongs exclusively to them; they intend to regain and hold it if they have to destroy every white man, woman, and child to accomplish their purpose. It would seem that the recent enormous emigration across the plains has alarmed many of the tribes and infused into their rude minds the belief that the whites were about to take possession of their country" (Report, 11). The great emigration referred to was in consequence of the rush to the gold mines of Pike's Peak, discovered in 1858.
As usual, the Indians had deferred hostilities until the grass was high enough in the spring to enable their ponies to travel. In April a government physician, who had been sent among these tribes to vaccinate them as a protection from the smallpox which had recently decimated them, as already noted, found them all apparently friendly. From him we have an interesting description of the appearance and home life of the famous chief Set-t'aiñte. He writes from Fort Larned:
I have been two weeks among the Kiowas, about 40 miles up the Arkansas river. I was four days in Satana's [Set-t'aiñte] or White Bear's village, who is, I believe, their principal chief. He is a fine-looking Indian, very energetic, and as sharp as a brier. He and all his people treated, me with much friendship. I ate my meals regularly three times a day with him in his lodge. He puts on a good deal of style, spreads a carpet for his guests to sit on, and has painted fireboards 20 inches wide and 3 feet long, ornamented with bright brass tacks driven all around the edges, which they use for tables. He has a brass French horn, which he blew vigorously when the meals were ready. I slept with Yellow Buffalo, who was one of the chiefs that visited Washington with Major Colley. They have quite a number of cows and calves and a good many oxen and some mules and American horses that they say they stole from Texas. A body of Kiowas and Comanches and some Cheyennes intend to make another raid into Texas in about five or six weeks.
It will be remembered that Texas was at this time in armed rebellion against the general government, a fact which confirmed the Indians in their belief that Texans and Americans were two distinct and hostile nations. With correct prophecy the doctor surmises that a successful result in the contemplated raid will encourage them to try their hand farther north. By this time he had vaccinated nearly all the Indians of the upper Arkansas (Report, 12). Fort Larned, in western Kansas, was then the distributing point for the goods furnished by the government to the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache.
In a few months the grass was up and a change came o'er the spirit of the dream. Hostilities had begun on the plains, and in order that the innocent might not be punished with the guilty, the friendly tribes along the eastern border had been forbidden to go out into the buffalo country. This deprivation of accustomed privileges naturally caused great dissatisfaction among the friendly Indians, who had come to depend on their annual buffalo hunt to eke out their scanty food supply, and they complained bitterly that the government had been feeding and clothing the hostiles, while they themselves had been left to starve. In a strong letter their agent writes that, while he has a desire to shield all Indians from wrong and severe treatment, yet "lead, and plenty of it, is what the Kiowas want and must have before they will behave." He denounces them as murderous thieves, and says that he has had personal experience of their insolence and outrages (Report, 13). The incidents of this war noted on the calendar are the encounter at Fort Larned, in which the Kiowa ran off the horses of the soldiers, and the attack on a Kiowa camp by a detachment of troops and Ute Indians under command of Kit Carson (see the calendar).
From the agent's report it appears that the Indians had begun hostilities in the summer simultaneously on the Platte and the Arkansas, and up to September had killed a number of people and run off several thousand head of horses, mules, and cattle. Communication between the Colorado settlements and the Missouri had been almost entirely cut off, the overland coaches had to be supplied with large escorts, and emigrant trains were compelled to combine for safety. It was thought that all the tribes of the plains were on the warpath together. The Indians were well mounted, knew the whole country perfectly, and so far, in every contest on anything like equal terms, had proven themselves a match for the white soldiers. As nearly the whole available force of the government was then employed in suppressing the rebellion, no additional troops could be sent to the frontier, and Governor Evans of Colorado asked and received permission to raise a force of volunteers against the hostiles. It was the opinion of many persons, including army officers stationed in the country, that the whole trouble might have been averted had the Indians been properly treated by the whites (Report, 14).
In spite of the serious condition of affairs it was evident that the chiefs did not want war. Early in September peace overtures were received from the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who soon after came in and camped as directed near Fort Lyon, Colorado. A month later the agent reported that the Kiowa and Comanche had committed no depredations for a long time and were supposed then to be south of the Arkansas, near the Texas border (Report, 15). Before the trouble began they had been encamped on the Arkansas, near Fort Larned. As the tribes had now expressed their desire for peace, a commission was sent out early in 1865 to meet them for that purpose. The commissioners met the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache on August 15 at the mouth of the Little Arkansas, where now is the town of Wichita, Kansas, and received their promise to cease hostilities and to meet the same commission in October to make a regular treaty of peace. Three days later the Cheyenne and Arapaho entered into a similar agreement at the same place. The Kiowa chiefs signing the agreement were Dohásän as head chief, Gúi-pä´go ("Lone-wolf"), Sét-dayâ´-ite ("Many-bears"), Set-t'aiñte ("White-bear"), Te'né-angópte ("Kicking-bird"), and Set-ĭmkía ("Pushing-bear," commonly known as Stumbling-bear), with Sét-tádal ("Lean-bear") for the Apache, and eight of the Comanche. Credit for this result is due largely to the efforts of agent Leavenworth, who secured a suspension of military operations while he went out to bring in the Indians, a matter of peculiar difficulty in view of their fresh recollection of the massacre of friendly Cheyenne by Colonel Chivington in the autumn of the preceding year (Report, 16).
Pursuant to agreement, commissioners met the five tribes in October, 1865, at the mouth of the Little Arkansas, where treaties were made with the Cheyenne and Arapaho on the 14th, with the Apache on the 17th, and with the Kiowa and Comanche on the 18th. By the treaty with the Apache they were officially detached from the Kiowa and Comanche and attached to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who agreed to relinquish their reservation in southeastern Colorado for one farther south, in Kansas and Indian Territory. The Kiowa and Comanche agreed to remove south of the Arkansas, the reservation proposed for their future home being a tract in western Texas and Oklahoma, as follows: Commencing on the Canadian river where the eastern line of New Mexico crosses the same; thence running south along said line to the southern boundary of New Mexico; thence in a northeastwardly direction to the headwaters of Big Wichita river; thence down said river to its mouth or its junction with Red river; thence due north to Canadian river; thence up the Canadian to the place of beginning. By this treaty, which was intended, to be only temporary, they gave up all claims in Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico, and were restricted to southwestern Oklahoma and the region of the Staked plain in Texas. Five white captives were surrendered by the Kiowa and Comanche at the same time (Treaty).
In the course of the talk Dohásän, on behalf of his people, made a vigorous protest against being confined to a reservation, claiming that the Kiowa owned from Fort Laramie and the North Platte to Texas and had always owned it, and that he did not want his country cut up and divided with other tribes or given to the white man; his people wanted a large country to roam over; they did not want to stay long in one place, but wanted to move about; the Santa Fé road was open and would not be disturbed, but the rest of their country he wanted let alone. Notwithstanding this protest the treaty was signed. Among others officially present were Kit Carson, William Bent, and Agent Leavenworth, with William Shirley and Jesse Chisholm as interpreters (Report, 17). Dohásän died shortly afterward, early in 1866, and with his death began the rapid decline of the Kiowa tribe. He was succeeded by Gúi-pä´go, "Lone-wolf," adopted father of the present chief of the same name. But the Indian day was drawing to a close. Within a few years the Kiowa were practically prisoners on a reservation, and their chiefs were the creatures of petty factions and mere figureheads in the hands of the government.
As a result of these peaceful efforts, there were but few reports of disturbances during the next year, excepting from the incorrigible Kiowa. Notwithstanding all their promises, Set-t'aiñte led a war party into Texas and returned with five captives, a woman and four children, whom he brought into Fort Larned for ransom. The agent sharply reminded him of his promise to cease such acts, and demanded the surrender of the prisoners without compensation, whereon, under pretense of consulting the other chiefs, Set-t'aiñte took them to Fort Dodge, where the commander, compassionating their condition, rescued them for a large sum. In reporting the circumstance, their agent urges that it is high time the Kiowa were made to feel the strong arm of the government as the only means of bringing them to a sense of their duty, as they even went so far as to boast that stealing white women was a more lucrative business than stealing horses (Report, 18).
Other complaints came in during the next year, but full investigation by the military authorities satisfied them that with the exception of this raid by Set-t'aiñte the Kiowa and Comanche were innocent (Report, 19). Accordingly measures were taken to arrange a meeting with these tribes to establish more definite treaty relations, as contemplated in the provisional treaty of 1865. Preliminary to this meeting Agent Labadi, with a small party, went from Santa Fé across to the Texas border, where he met a large portion of the confederated tribes and urged on them the necessity of keeping peace with the government, at the same time demanding the free surrender of all white captives of the United States held by them, concluding by telling them that all of their tribes hereafter found north of the Arkansas would be treated as hostiles. After a conference among themselves, the chiefs agreed to deliver up the captives and end all difficulties, and arranged for a full meeting later, when some absent chiefs should have returned. In regard to the raids into Texas, they distinctly stated that they had been told by the military officers of the government to do all the damage they could to Texas, because Texas was at war with the United States (referring to the recent rebellion), and that until now they were ignorant that peace had been established. Although it is pretty certain that some of them at least had already been told that the rebellion was at an end, yet there can be no doubt that the peculiar relations which from the very beginning had existed between Texas and the general government furnished them a plausible excuse for the depredations (Report, 20).
The result of these negotiations was the treaty of Medicine Lodge on October 21, 1867, by which the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache were officially confederated and agreed to come upon their present reservation (see the calendar). This treaty merits extended notice, inasmuch as it changed the whole status of the Kiowa and their allies from that of independent tribes with free and unrestricted range over the whole plains to that of pensioners dependent on the government, confined to the narrow limits of a reservation and subject to constant military and civilian supervision. For them it marks the beginning of the end. Moreover, on the provisions and promises of this treaty are based all the arguments for and against the late unratified agreement of 1892. It will be necessary first to review the situation.
For a number of years the Indian problem on the plains had been constantly growing more serious. The treatment accorded by Texas to her native and border tribes had resulted in driving them northward to the country of upper Red river and the vicinity of the Santa Fé trail, where they were a constant menace both to the trading caravans and to the frontier settlers of Kansas and Colorado. In addition to the old Santa Fé trail the thousands of emigrants to California and Oregon had established regular roads across the plains, in the north along the North Platte and in the south along the base of the Staked plain, while the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 brought a flood of white settlement into the very heart of the Indian country, driving away the buffalo and narrowing the range of the tribes. Encroachments and reprisals were becoming chronic, and it was evident that some arrangement must be made by which the wild tribes could be assigned a territory remote from the line of settlement and travel, where they might roam and hunt undisturbed, without danger of coming into collision with the whites.
The conditions a few years previous are well summed up by the veteran trader William Bent, at that time agent for the Cheyenne and Arapaho, in an official report dated October 5, 1859. In it he says:
The Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes scrupulously maintain peaceful relations with the whites and with other Indian tribes, notwithstanding the many causes of irritation growing out of the occupation of the gold region, and the emigration to it through their hunting grounds, which are no longer reliable as a certain source of food to them. These causes precipitate the necessity of immediate and sufficient negotiations for the safety of the whites, the emigrant roads, and the Indians....
The Kiowa and Comanche Indians have for two years appeared in full numbers and for long periods upon the Arkansas, and now permanently occupy the country between the Canadian and Arkansas rivers. This is in consequence of the hostile front opposed to them in Texas, by which they are forced toward the north, and is likely to continue perpetual.... A smothered passion for revenge agitates these Indians, perpetually fomented by the failure of food, the encircling encroachments of the white population, and the exasperating sense of decay and impending extinction with which they are surrounded....
I estimate the number of whites traversing the plains across the center belt to have exceeded sixty thousand during the present season. The trains of vehicles and cattle are frequent and valuable in proportion. Post lines and private expresses are in constant motion. The explorations of this season have established the existence of the precious metals in absolutely infinite abundance and convenience of position. The concourse of whites is therefore constantly swelling and incapable of control or restraint by the government. This suggests the policy of promptly rescuing the Indians and withdrawing them from contact with the whites, as the element capable of such immediate management as may anticipate and prevent difficulties and massacre. I repeat, then, as the suggestion of my best judgment, that immediate and sufficient steps be taken to assemble and finally dispose of these particular tribes of Indians, viz, the Kiowa and Comanches, the Cheyennes, and the Arapahoes, by reducing them, under treaties and arrangements, to become agricultural and pastoral people, located within specific districts, judiciously selected and liberally endowed, to which they shall be restricted and the white men excluded from among them. These numerous and warlike Indians, pressed upon all around by the Texans, by the settlers of the gold region, by the advancing people of Kansas and from the Platte, are already compressed into a small circle of territory, destitute of food, and itself bisected athwart by a constantly marching line of emigrants. A desperate war of starvation and extinction is therefore imminent and inevitable unless prompt measures shall prevent it (Report, 21).
Despite this warning no steps were taken toward a remedy, and in April, 1864, the irritation resulted in a war with the Cheyenne, speedily involving also the Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, with several bands of the Dakota. The most memorable incident of this war was the massacre of 120 friendly Cheyenne, encamped under the protection of the United States flag, near Fort Lyon, on Sand creek, Colorado, by Colorado militia under Colonel Chivington, on November 29, 1864. Hostilities ended with treaties made with the five tribes chiefly concerned at the mouth of the Little Arkansas (now Wichita, Kansas), in October, 1865, as already noted. Short as the war had been, it had cost the government over $30,000,000 and an unknown number of lives (Report, 22).
From this time the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, as tribes, remained quiet, according to the terms of the treaty, but it was otherwise with the more northern Indians, who found themselves subjected to constant aggressions in spite of all agreements. In July, 1866, a war broke out with the Sioux, and in April, 1867, it spread to the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Leading incidents of these campaigns were the massacre of Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman's whole command at Fort Phil. Kearney, December 21, 1866, and the burning of a large Cheyenne village on the Pawnee fork, by General Hancock, in April, 1867 (Report, 23).
At this stage of affairs Congress appointed a commission to establish peace with the hostile tribes, by first ascertaining their grievances and then making such treaties as would remove the causes of dissatisfaction and afford protection to the frontier settlements, emigrant roads, and railroads by assigning to the tribes reservations where they could remain undisturbed in the future. This commission consisted of N. G. Taylor, president, John B. Sanborn, Samuel F. Tappan, J. B. Henderson, and Generals William S. Harney, Alfred H. Terry, and C. C. Augur. Notwithstanding open war was in progress, they found no difficulty in effecting friendly meetings with the various tribes. In September and October, 1867, the commission held councils with the Sioux and Crows and made treaties with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, these being the treaties under which the latter tribes hold their present or recent reservations and draw their annuities.
In regard to the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, the commissioners state that from the testimony they were satisfied that these tribes had substantially complied with the terms of their treaty made two years before on the Little Arkansas, the only serious violation being the killing of James Box and the capture of his family in western Texas in August, 1866. This is the Set-t'aiñte raid already noted. As excuse for this, the commissioners state, the Indians urged that they supposed an attack on Texas people would be no violation of a treaty with the United States—that as we ourselves had been at war with the people of Texas, an act of hostility on their part would not be disagreeable to us. In regard to numerous other misdeeds credited to these tribes, they state that the evidence pretty clearly demonstrates that the charges were almost entirely without foundation (Report, 24).
After visiting some of the northern bands, the commissioners went to Fort Larned, Kansas, whence they sent messengers to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, notifying them of their arrival and purpose. They then proceeded to the general tribal rendezvous on Medicine-lodge creek, about the present site of Medicine Lodge, Barber county, Kansas, where they met the Indians, and the treaties were made (see the calendar).
A treaty was first made with the Kiowa and Comanche on October 21, 1867, and by a supplementary treaty made immediately afterward on the same day, the Apache, at their own request, were formally confederated and incorporated with them instead of with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, with whom they had been united by the treaty of the Little Arkansas two years before. The Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache together signed the treaty of confederation, which was proclaimed August 25, 1868. At the same council meeting was made the similar treaty with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, by which those tribes held their late reservation and became entitled to their current annuities. These treaties superseded all previous agreements (Treaties).
The Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache treaty provides for peace and mutual good will, and stipulates that the Indians shall refrain from further attacks on the whites, and withdraw all opposition to the construction of railroads and other roads and the building of military posts in the western country, then or afterward to be authorized by the government. The usual provision is made for an agency, schools, farmers, doctor, blacksmith, etc. Article 6 provides for the selection of farming tracts within the proposed reservation, to be recorded and held as the individual property of such Indians as may desire to become farmers.
Article 2 sets apart for the use of the three confederated tribes their present reservation, bounded on the east by the ninety-eighth meridian, on the south and west by Red river and its Northfork, and on the north by the Washita from the ninety-eighth meridian up to a point 30 miles by river from Fort Cobb, and thence by a line due west to the North fork. All within these bounds is solemnly "set apart for the undisturbed use and occupation of the tribes herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them; and the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons except those herein authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employés of the government as may be authorized to enter upon [the] Indian reservation in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article, or in such territory as may be added to this reservation, for the use of said Indians."
By article 10 all obligations incurred by the United States under previous treaties are canceled, and instead the government agrees to deliver at the agency, "on the 15th day of October of each year, for thirty years," the equivalent of a full suit of clothing for each Indian man, woman, and child, for which purpose the agent is to make an annual census of the tribes; "and in addition to the clothing herein named, the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars shall be annually appropriated for a period of thirty years" for the judicious purchase of such articles as may seem proper to the condition and necessities of the Indians. Provision is made for the expenditure of a portion of the clothing fund in other ways for the benefit of the Indians, whenever, within the period of thirty years, it might seem advisable, "but in no event shall the amount of this appropriation be withdrawn or discontinued for the period named." All annuity issues were to be made in the presence of an army officer detailed for the purpose, who should inspect and report on the quantity and quality of the goods and the manner of their delivery.
Provision is also made for establishing a sufficient number of schools to continue for a period of not less than twenty years. The Indians agree to surrender all claims to lands outside the reservation as established in article 2, retaining, however, some temporary hunting privileges south of the Arkansas. Several minor details are specified, and by article 12 it is stipulated that no treaty for the sale of any portion of the reservation thus agreed upon shall have force or validity "unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of all the adult male Indians occupying the same."
The Kiowa signers were ten in number, of whom only Set-ĭmkía was still alive in 1896. Their names were:
The Apache signers were:
The Comanche signers, of whom only Howia was alive in 1896, were:
In addition to the signatures of the commissioners the treaty bears the names of a number of witnesses, some of them noted in the pioneer history of the southwest, including Thomas Murphy, superintendent of Indian affairs, J. H. Leavenworth, agent for the three tribes, and Philip McCusker, the interpreter, well known in connection with these tribes until his death in 1885.
As no arrangements had yet been made for the removal of the Indians to the south, most of them remained encamped on the Arkansas until June, 1868, when the Cheyenne became involved in difficulty with the military, resulting in their flight southward to the Canadian and Washita. On the return of the unsuccessful war party against the Ute, in which Setdayâ´ite had been killed, as narrated in the calendar for that year (see the calendar), the Kiowa also left the Arkansas and removed to the south, thus anticipating measures by General Sherman to drive all these tribes by military force upon the new reservations assigned them by the late treaty, notwithstanding the fact that neither agency buildings nor agents were yet established on either reservation. In pursuance of this policy, General Sherman, in September, asked to have all issues whatever to any of these tribes withheld until they had concentrated near Fort Cobb on the Washita, and announced that after waiting a sufficient time for them to reach that point he would solicit an order declaring all Indians outside these reservations to be outlaws, "and recommending all people, soldiers, and citizens to proceed against them as such." He also proposed to declare forfeited the hunting privileges outside these boundaries, guaranteed under the treaty. Despite the agent's protest that the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache had done nothing to deserve such treatment, and the statement of the acting commissioner that Fort Cobb was not on the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation at all, military operations were begun in September, with this purpose in view, with the result that all five tribes were again involved in war (Report, 25).
However peaceable the Kiowa and Comanche may have been on the Kansas frontier at this time, they were insolent enough in the south, for, in addition to raids into Texas, the agent for the Wichita and associated tribes, which had recently been removed to the vicinity of Fort Cobb, reports that they had plundered the Wichita of nearly everything, burned the agency, and forced the employees to leave to save their lives (Report, 26).
The command of operations in Indian Territory was given to General George A. Custer, who left Fort Dodge, Kansas, with eleven troops of the Seventh cavalry and twelve troops of Kansas volunteers, and after establishing Camp Supply, started on a winter campaign, intending to strike the Indians when they would be least prepared for defense or flight. The result was the "Battle of the Washita," on November 27, 1868, in which the Cheyenne village under Black-kettle was surprised and totally destroyed, one hundred and three warriors, including Black-kettle himself, being killed, a number of prisoners taken, and nearly a thousand ponies captured and shot, thus practically rendering the survivors helpless. The engagement occurred on the south bank of the Washita, in Oklahoma, just above Sergeant-major creek. Most of the Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache were camped below along the river for a distance of several miles; the whole forming the winter camp of the allied tribes. The Kiowa, who were nearest, prepared to attack, but, being taken at a disadvantage, agreed to go with the troops to Fort Cobb, the proposed agency. Instead of doing this, however, the warriors sent their families with their movables in a contrary direction and attempted to slip away themselves in small parties until Custer seized Lone-wolf, the head chief, and Set-t'aiñte, next in authority, and threatened to hang them both unless the absentees delivered themselves at Fort Cobb within two days. This brought matters to a head, and the whole tribe, excepting a band which fled under Woman-heart (Mäñyí-tén) toward the Staked plain, came in and surrendered at Fort Cobb within the time specified, about the end of December, 1868. The two chiefs were thereupon set at liberty. Most of the Comanche and Apache had already come in immediately after the Washita fight. The Cheyenne and Arapaho fled to the head of Red river, where they were followed by Custer, and were brought in later to their own reservation (Custer, 1; Record, 1). As an effective means of holding these tribes in check for the future, Fort Sill was established in the spring of 1869, nearly in the center of the reservation, with the agency for the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache adjoining.
Although they had been compelled to settle on a reservation, the Kiowa continued their raids into Texas, destroying property, killing white people, and carrying away captives. On one occasion they even attacked the agency at Fort Sill, killed and wounded several men, stampeded the agency cattle and the quartermaster's mules, and defiantly challenged the soldiers to come out and fight. Civil and military officials alike agree that there was not the slightest excuse for these outrages, to which they were encouraged by the Kwáhadi Comanche, who had never yet come in from the Staked plain and who never ceased to ridicule those Indians who had submitted. To put an end to this state of affairs, the Commissioner in 1870 recommended the establishment of a line of posts along the southern boundary of the reservation, and that the Kiowa and Comanche should all be placed under military control until they had learned to behave properly (Report, 27).
Affairs went on from bad to worse. In 1871 a large raiding party killed seven men in Texas, torturing one over a fire, and capturing a number of mules. The leaders had the hardihood to boast of their deed in the presence of the agent and General Sherman, who promptly arrested the three most prominent, Set-t'aiñte, Setängya, and Ä´do-eétte or "Big-tree." Setängya (Satank) resisted and was killed. The other two were sent to Texas for trial and punishment (see the calendar).
In 1872 another Commissioner declared that the point had been reached where forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and again recommended that the three tribes be turned over to the military for punishment. He states that a wholesome example is absolutely necessary to command obedience, asserting that "so long as four-fifths of these tribes take turns at raiding into Texas, openly and boastfully bringing back scalps and spoils to their reservation, efforts to inspire very high ideas of social and industrial life among the communities of which the raiders form so large a part will presumably result in failure." At the same time their agent reports that, although they had come regularly for their rations during the preceding winter and spring, giving repeated assurance of amity and peace, yet so soon as their horses were in condition in summer the Kiowa had gone on the warpath, taking with them a large number of the Comanche and Apache, and within a few months had stolen hundreds of horses and mules, carried off several captive women and children, and killed over twenty persons in Texas, besides others in New Mexico and elsewhere. By withholding rations for three months, he had compelled them to bring in two captives without ransom, and states that he would continue to withhold supplies from them until the other was surrendered. He declared, finally, that the Kiowa and some bands of the Comanche were beyond control by him (Report, 28). The calendar for this year (q. v.) also takes note of these raids.