Red River War
Encyclopedia
- Red River War may also refer to the conflict between Oklahoma and Texas known as the Red River Bridge WarRed River Bridge WarThe Bridge War, also called the Red River Bridge War or the Toll Bridge War, was a 1931 bloodless boundary conflict between the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Texas over an existing toll bridge and a new free bridge crossing the Red River....
.
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
in 1874, as part of the Comanche War
Comanche Campaign
The Comanche Campaign, or the Comanche War, from 1867 to 1875, was a series of conflicts that took place throughout the border regions of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas, between the Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, Sioux and Cheyenne tribes of native Americans against the United States Army...
, to remove the Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
, Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho
Arapaho
The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...
Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
tribes from the Southern Plains and forcibly relocate them to reservations in Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
. Lasting only a few months, the war saw several army columns crisscross the Texas Panhandle
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
in an effort to locate, harass and capture highly mobile Indian bands. Most of the engagements were small skirmishes in which neither side suffered many casualties. The war wound down over the last few months of 1874 as fewer and fewer Indian bands had the strength and supplies to remain in the field. Though the last significantly sized group wouldn't surrender until mid-1875, the war marked the end of free roaming Indian populations on the Southern Plains.
Background
Prior to the arrival of white settlers on the Great PlainsGreat Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
, the Comanche and other tribes lived a wide ranging nomadic existence. Beginning in the 1830s significant numbers of permanent white settlements were established in what had previously been the exclusive territory of the Indians. Attacks, raids, and counter-raids, often brutally violent, occurred frequently. Prior to the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the U.S. Army was only sporadically involved in these frontier conflicts, manning forts but only occasionally striking outside of them. During the Civil War, the military withdrew almost completely and Indian raids increased dramatically.
After the war, the military began reasserting itself along the frontier. The Medicine Lodge Treaty
Medicine Lodge Treaty
The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed between the United States government and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American...
, signed near present day Medicine Lodge, KS in 1867, called for two reservations to be set aside in Indian Territory, one for the Comanche and Kiowa and one for the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. According to the treaty, the government would provide the tribes with housing, agricultural training, and food and other supplies. In exchange, the Indians agreed to cease raiding and attacking settlements. Dozens of chiefs endorsed the treaty and some tribal members moved voluntarily to the reservations, but it was never officially ratified and several groups of Indians still on the Plains didn't even attended the negotiations. The treaty was widely ignored.
In 1870, a new technique for tanning buffalo
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
hides became commercially available. In response, white hunters began systematically targeting buffalo for the first time. Once numbering in the tens of millions, the buffalo population plummeted. By 1878 they would be all but extinct.
The destruction of the buffalo herds was a disaster for the Plains Indians, on and off the reservations. The entire nomadic way of life had been based around the animals. They were used for food, fuel and construction materials. Without abundant buffalo, the Plains Indians had no means of self support.
By the winter of 1873-1874, the Plains Indians were in crisis. The reduction of the buffalo herds to unthinkably low levels combined with ever increasing numbers of white settlers and more aggressive military patrols had put them in an unsustainable position.
War
During the winter, a spiritual leader named Isa-taiIsa-tai
Isa-tai was a Comanche warrior and medicine man of the Quahadi band. Originally named Quenatosavit , after the debacle at Adobe Walls he was known as Isa-tai which translates as "wolf's vulva" or "coyote vagina". Isa-tai gained enormous prominence for a brief period in 1873-74 as a prophet and...
(White Eagle) emerged among the Quahadi Band of Comanches. Isa-tai claimed to have the power to render himself and others invulnerable to their enemies, including to bullets, and was able to rally an enormous number of Indians for large raids.
Adobe Walls
On 27 June 1874, Isa-tai and Comanche chief Quanah ParkerQuanah Parker
Quanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
led approximately 250 warriors in an attack on a small outpost of buffalo hunters called Adobe Walls
Adobe Walls, Texas
Adobe Walls ia a ghost town in Hutchinson County, northeast of Stinnett, in the U.S. state of Texas. It was established in 1843 as a trading post for buffalo hunters and local Indian trade in the vicinity of the Canadian River. It later became a ranching community. Historically, Adobe Walls is the...
. The encampment consisted of just a few buildings and was occupied by only twenty-eight men and one woman. Though a few whites were killed in the opening moments of the Second Battle of Adobe Walls
Second Battle of Adobe Walls
The Second Battle of Adobe Walls was fought on June 27, 1874 between Comanche forces and a group of twenty-eight U.S. bison hunters defending the settlement of Adobe Walls, Texas in what is now Hutchinson County, Texas.-Adobe Walls Settlement:...
(the first had been in 1864
First Battle of Adobe Walls
The First Battle of Adobe Walls, was a battle between the United States Army and native Americans. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to attacks on white settlers moving into the Southwest...
), the majority were able to barricade themselves indoors and hold off the attack. Using large caliber buffalo guns, the hunters could fire on the warriors from much greater range than the Indians had expected, and the attack failed.
After Adobe Walls, the surviving Indian warriors scattered and raided along the frontier. The explosion of violence took the government by surprise. The "peace policy" of the Grant Administration was deemed a failure, and the Army was authorized to subdue the Southern Plains tribes with whatever force necessary. At this time, roughly 1,800 Cheyennes, 2,000 Comanches, and 1,000 Kiowas remained at large. Combined, they mounted about 1,200 warriors.
Army Response
General Phillip Sheridan ordered five army columns to converge on the general area of the Texas Panhandle and specifically upon the upper tributaries of the Red RiverRed River (Mississippi watershed)
The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in the southern United States of America. The river gains its name from the red-bed country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name...
. The strategy was to deny the Indians any safe haven and attack them unceasingly until they went permanently to the reservations.
Three of the five columns were under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie
Ranald S. Mackenzie
Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was a career United States Army officer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, described by General Ulysses S. Grant as its most promising young officer...
. The Tenth Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel John W. Davidson, came due west from Fort Sill
Fort Sill
Fort Sill is a United States Army post near Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.Today, Fort Sill remains the only active Army installation of all the forts on the South Plains built during the Indian Wars...
. The Eleventh Infantry, under Lieutenant Colonel George P. Buell
George P. Buell
George Pearson Buell was an American civil engineer and soldier. He served as a Union Army general during the American Civil War, and remained in the United States Army following the conflict.-Early life and career:...
, moved northwest from Fort Griffin
Fort Griffin
Fort Griffin was a Cavalry fort established in the late 1860s in the northern part of West Texas, specifically northwestern Shackelford County, to give settlers protection from early Comanche and Kiowa raids...
. Mackenzie himself led the Fourth Cavalry north from Fort Concho
Fort Concho
Fort Concho is a National Historic Landmark owned and operated since 1935 by the city of San Angelo, the seat of Tom Green County in West Texas...
.
The fourth column, consisting of the Sixth Cavalry and Fifth Infantry, was commanded by Colonel Nelson A. Miles
Nelson A. Miles
Nelson Appleton Miles was a United States soldier who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War.-Early life:Miles was born in Westminster, Massachusetts, on his family's farm...
and came south from from Fort Dodge
Fort Dodge (US Army Post)
The site of Fort Dodge in the US state of Kansas was originally an old campground for wagons traveling along the Santa Fe Trail. A military camp was established on the site in 1864, but was abandoned....
. The fifth column, the Eighth Cavalry commanded by Major William R. Price, marched east from Fort Bascom
Fort Bascom
Fort Bascom, established in 1863, is located in New Mexico on the Canadian River slightly west of the Texas border. The fort was named in honor of Captain George Nicholas Bascom who was killed during the American Civil War on February 21, 1862 while defending Fort Craig against Confederate forces...
in New Mexico. The plan called for the converging columns to maintain a continuous offensive until a decisive defeat had been inflicted on the Indians.
As many as twenty engagements took place across the Texas Panhandle. The Army, consisting entirely of soldiers and scouts, sought to engage the Indians at any opportunity. The Indians, traveling with women, children and elderly, mostly attempted to avoid them. When the two did encounter one another, the Indians usually tried to escape before the Army could force them to surrender. However, even a successful escape could be disastrously costly if horses, food and equipment had to be left behind. By contrast, the Army and its Indian scouts had access to essentially limitless supplies and equipment, they frequently burned anything they captured from retreating Indians, and were capable of continuing operations indefinitely. The war continued throughout the fall of 1874, but increasing numbers of Indians were forced to give up and head for Fort Sill to enter the reservation system.
Battle of Palo Duro Canyon
The largest Army victory came when Mackenzie found a large village of Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne, including their horses and winter food supply, in upper Palo Duro CanyonBattle of Palo Duro Canyon
The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon was a significant United States victory that brought about the end of the Red River War.-Background:Ever since the summer of 1874 the Comanches, Cheyenne and Kiowas had sought refuge in Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle. There they had been stockpiling food and...
. At dawn on September 28th, Mackenzie's troops attacked down a steep canyon wall. The Indians were caught by surprise and didn't have time to gather their horses or supplies before retreating. Sergeant John Charlton wrote of the battle:
- "The warriors held their ground for a time, fighting desperately to cover the exit of their squaws and pack animals, but under the persistent fire of the troops they soon began falling back."
Only four Indians were killed, but the loss was devastating. Mackenzie's men burned over 450 lodges and destroyed countless pounds of buffalo meat. They also took 1,400 horses, most of which were subsequently shot to prevent the Indians from recapturing them.
Except for its unusually large size, the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon was typical of the war. Most encounters produced few or no casualties, but the Indians could not afford the constant loss of food and mounts. Even if it escaped immediate danger, an Indian band that found itself on foot and out of food generally had no choice but to give up and head for the reservation.
Aftermath
The Red River War officially ended in June 1875 when Quanah Parker and his band of Quahadi Comanche entered Fort Sill and surrendered; they were the last large roaming band of southwestern Indians. Combined with the extermination of the buffalo, the war left the Texas Panhandle permanently open to settlement by farmers and ranchers It was the final military defeat of the once powerful Southern Plains tribes and brought an end to the Texas–Indian Wars.See Also
- Ranald S. MackenzieRanald S. MackenzieRanald Slidell Mackenzie was a career United States Army officer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, described by General Ulysses S. Grant as its most promising young officer...
- Quanah ParkerQuanah ParkerQuanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
- Medicine Lodge TreatyMedicine Lodge TreatyThe Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed between the United States government and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American...
- KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
- ComancheComancheThe Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...