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In the 18th century, Spanish settlers in Texas came into conflict with the Apaches, Comanches, and Karankawas, among other tribes. Large numbers of American settlers reached Texas in the 1830s, and a series of armed confrontations broke out until the 1870s, mostly between Texans and Comanches. During the same period, the Comanches and their allies raided hundreds of miles deep into Mexico (see Comanche–Mexico Wars). Famously, Sam Houston, a politician from the United States went on a self-imposed exile among the Cherokees in 1829. As a potential heir apparent to Andrew Jackson, a relationship he built during the War of 1812, Houston may well have given up an opportunity to run eventually for president of the United States. As president, Andrew Jackson would sow the seeds in the United States government for what would lead to the massive forced removal of Southeastern Natives to reservations in Oklahoma, infamously known as the Trail of Tears.
Houston made his way to what is now Oklahoma to live once again in self-imposed exile among the Cherokees for three years. Among the Indians he tried to reestablish his tranquility. He dressed Indian-style and, although he corresponded with Andrew Jackson, he secluded himself from contacts with white society. Initially, too, he drank so heavily that he reportedly earned the nickname "Big Drunk." He quickly became active in Indian affairs, especially in helping to keep peace between the various tribes in Indian Territory. He was granted Cherokee citizenship and often acted as a tribal emissary. Under Cherokee law, he married an Indian woman of mixed blood. Together, they established a residence and trading post called Wigwam Neosho on the Neosho River near Fort Gibson.
The first notable battle was the Fort Parker massacre in 1836, in which a huge war party of Comanches, Kiowas, Wichitas, and Delawares attacked the Texan outpost at Fort Parker. A small number of settlers were killed during the raid, and the abduction of Cynthia Ann Parker and two other children caused widespread outrage among Texans.
The Republic of Texas was declared and secured some sovereignty in their war with Mexico, and the Texas government under President Sam Houston pursued a policy of engagement with the Comanches and Kiowas. Houston had lived with the Cherokees, but the Cherokees joined with Mexican forces to fight against Texas. Houston resolved the conflict without resorting to arms, refusing to believe that the Cherokees would take up arms against his government. The administration of Mirabeau B. Lamar followed Houston's and took a very different policy towards the Indians. Lamar removed the Cherokees to the west and then sought to deport the Comanches and Kiowas. This led to a series of battles, including the Council House Fight, in which the Texas militia killed 33 Comanche chiefs at a peace parley. The Comanches retaliated to the Great Raid of 1840, where 33 of their chiefs were attacked on a peace negotiation, leading to the Battle of Plum Creek followed several days later.
The Lamar Administration was known for its failed and expensive Indian policy; the cost of the war with the Indians exceeded the annual revenue of the government throughout his four-year term. It was followed by a second Houston administration, which resumed the previous policy of diplomacy. Texas signed treaties with all of the tribes, including the Comanches. In the 1840s and 1850s, the Comanches and their allies shifted most of their raiding activities to Mexico, using Texas as a safe haven from Mexican retaliation.
Texas joined the Union in 1846, and the Federal government and Texas took up the struggle between the Plains Indians and the settlers. The conflicts were particularly vicious and bloody on the Texas frontier in 1856 through 1858, as settlers continued to expand their settlements into the Comancheria. The first Texan incursion into the heart of the Comancheria was in 1858, the so-called Antelope Hills Expedition marked by the Battle of Little Robe Creek.
The battles between settlers and Indians continued in 1860, and Texas militia destroyed an Indian camp at the Battle of Pease River. In the aftermath of the battle, the Texans learned that they had recaptured Cynthia Ann Parker, the little girl captured by the Comanches in 1836. She returned to live with her family, but she missed her children, including her son Quanah Parker. He was the son of Parker and Comanche Chief Peta Nocona, and he became a Comanche war chief at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. He ultimately surrendered to the overwhelming force of the federal government and moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma in 1875. Facing sudden and unfamiliar challenges on the reservation, Quanah adapted, and is considered the last Chief of the Comanches.
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