Cultures in Conflict A visual history of the Frontier Wars in Texas

1. Cultures in Conflict A visual history of the Frontier Wars in Texas

2. Native American Needs vs. Anglo American Needs LAND Needed for farming and ranching LAND Needed for buffalo • Strengths: • Knowledge of the territory • Skilled fighters • Strengths: • Forts • Federal government support • Weaknesses: • Too few in number, untrained, supply shortages • Forts too far apart • Little experience fighting Native Americans • Weaknesses: • Depended on buffalo for survival • Disagreement among leaders

3. Medicine Lodge Treaty Engraving of the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council, 1867Natives agreed to stop raiding Anglo settlements in exchange for rations and supplies 1867 – present day Kansas Representatives from the United States and representatives of the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other southern Plains tribes sign the Medicine Lodge Treaty, intended to remove Indians from the path of white settlement. The treaty marks the end of the era in which federal policymakers saw the Plains as "one big reservation" to be divided up among various tribes. Instead, the treaty establishes reservations for each tribe in the western part of present-day Oklahoma. It also requires Native Americans to stop making raids on Anglo American settlements and give up their traditional lands elsewhere. In exchange, the government pledges to establish reservation schools and to provide resident farmers who will teach the Indians agriculture. However, the Army would not be allowed on reservation land.The tribes' refusal to give up their free-ranging traditions and remain confined within the territory assigned to them leads to devastating warfare.

4. Important TX Indian Chiefs and Warriors Satank (Set-ankia) Sitting Bear Kiowa Chief who was killed during transport to Jacksboro for trial after the Warren Wagon Train Raid. Kiowa Lone Wolf (Guipago) Leader of the War Faction of the Kiowa Tribe. He believed in fighting the whites to keep the Kiowa way of life. Attended the Medicine Lodge Treaty and fought at Adobe Walls. Kicking Bird (Te-ne-angopte) Leader of the Peace Faction of the Kiowa Tribe. He urged his people to adapt and became known for his preaching of peace. Satanta (Set-tain-te) White Bear Called “Orator of the Plains” because of his speeches at Medicine Lodge Council. Kiowa Chief involved in the Warren Wagon Train Raid

5. Important TX Indian Chiefs and Warriors Quanah Parker Son of a Comanche chief (Peta Nocona) and an Anglo American woman, Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured by the Comanche as a child. He became a powerful Comanche chief who fought to stop the spread of the Anglos. Comanche Ten Bears (Paruasemana) Comanche chief known for his speech at the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867. "I was born upon the prairie where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls."

6. President Ulysses S. GrantReplaced military officers on reservations with Quaker agents in an effort to make peace General William Tecumseh Sherman Civil War hero who brought the total war tactics he used to crush the Confederacy against the tribes of the Plains Important White Leaders of the Frontier Wars Lawrie Tatum Quaker Agent sent by Grant to help deal with the Native Americans in Indian Territory. Shown here with some returned Native captives. General Philip Sheridan Commander of the US Military Department of the Southwest. Helped defeat the bill proposed by the Texas Legislature that would have protected the buffalo Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, 4th Cavalry The leader of the U.S. Army at Palo Duro

7. Aftermath of Indian attack on an early Texas farm. The Native’s economy had become dependent on the people and supplies acquired from Anglos during these raids. Drawing by Nola Davis, courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. The threat of Indian raids was a constant source of anxiety for settlers on the Texas frontier, particularly after U.S. troops left Texas during the Civil War years Painting by Nola Davis, courtesy of Fort Richardson SHS, Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept On a path of destruction stretching from Linville in south Texas to east of Austin, Comanche raiders are intercepted by citizen militia and rangers at the Battle of Plum Creek Engraving from sketch by T.J. Owen (a pseudonym for the author, O'Henry), from Wilbrager, 1889.

8. Warren Wagon Train Raid The Warren Wagon Train Raid was a raid by the Kiowa that served as a turning point in American Policy toward the Natives of Texas. Site of the Warren Wagon Train Raid Young County, 1871 Sketch depicting Warren Wagon train attack T.J. Owen (the writer O.Henry.) The peace policy adopted after the Medicine Lodge Treaty was abandoned. The Quaker Agents were sent home. The army would stop just defending the settlers… they would start attacking.

9. What the Buffalo Meant to the Native Americans Paunch (stomach) made into water bags Sinews (tendons) and hair were made into bowstrings, rope, and thread Buffalo hide became clothing, saddles, robes, and covers for teepees Hoofs, horns and bones became ornaments, cups, and utensils Buffalo Poo (dung) was used as fuel for fires A Kiowa chief describes it this way: “The buffalo is our money … the robes we can prepare and trade. We love them just as the white man does his money. Just as it makes a white man feel to have his money carried away, so it makes us feel to see others killing and stealing our buffaloes, which are our cattle given to us by the Great Father above.” = Survival

10. Using Buffalo to Destroy the Native Americans General Philip Sheridan Instrumental in instituting the policy of killing the buffalo to kill the Indians Shooting Buffalo on the Line of the Kansas-Pacific Railroad, c. 1870 By promoting in Congressional testimony the hunting and slaughter of the vast herds of American Bison on the Great Plains and by other means, Sheridan helped deprive the Indians of their primary source of food. Professional hunters, trespassing on Indian land, killed over 4 million bison by 1874. When the Texas legislature considered outlawing bison poaching on tribal lands, Sheridan personally testified against it in Austin, Texas. He suggested that the legislature should give each of the hunters a medal, engraved with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged-looking Indian on the other.

11. Drawing of the Adobe Walls Battle – June 1874 One of the battles of the Red River War. Quanah Parker led 100s of warriors from 5 Native American Nations against 29 Anglo buffalo hunters in a failed effort to take over the camp. The battle was a crushing spiritual defeat for the Native Americans. However, the Natives increased their attacks on West Texas settlements and kept fighting in order to protect their land and stop the killing of the buffalo. Over the next two months they killed over 190 settlers across 5 states. Quanah Parker Led the Comanche at Adobe Walls Battle of Palo Duro Canyon – September 1874 The major battle of the Red River War. It was a small battle, but it represented the last effort of the Natives in Texas to stand up against the American military and the advancement of the whites. The battle ended in the confinement of the Plains Indians to reservations in Indian Territory. Red River War The final stand of the Plains Indians in Texas Colonel Mackenzie, 4th Cavalry The leader of the U.S. Army at Palo Duro Lone Wolf One of the chiefs defeated at the Battle of Palo Duro

12. Charles Rath Buffalo Hunter Between 1830-1880, the American bison, or buffalo, was reduced in numbers from 60 million to a mere handful. By 1900 there were only two small wild herds in all of North America, numbering only 550 animals. This change was accelerated in the last 40 years of the 19th century by the coming of the buffalo hunter and thousands of land-hungry settlers. J. Wright Mooar Buffalo Hunter

13. Buffalo skulls, mid-1870s, waiting to be ground into fertilizer The End of the Plains Indians The railroad, the development of the hide industry during the 1800s, and the wholesale destruction of the buffalo guaranteed that the Native Americans would no longer have the means to survive Rath & Wright's buffalo hide yard, showing 40,000 buffalo hides baled for shipment. Dodge City, Kansas, 1878

14. Buffalo Soldiers

15. The Results of the Frontier Wars of Texas • Native Americans in Texas moved onto the reservations in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) or continued their fight in other states • With the Native Americans out of Texas and the threat of raids gone, settlers could move into West Texas and the Panhandle and establish their farms and ranches • Many new towns were established at this time in the Western half of the state • The cattle industry exploded… with the buffalo gone from the “Sea of Grass” cattlemen now had huge areas in which to raise cattle on their new ranches • The forts were no longer needed, so many were closed.