The Comanche Empire
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foreseen destruction among its nomadic population that had not yet been ex-
posed to the disease and thus formed a virgin soil for the virus to spread and kill.
The epidemic, raging from Mexico City to Hudson Bay and the war-ravaged
East to the Northwest Coast, struck New Orleans in the winter of 1779–80. It then moved up the Red River to a cluster of newly established Wichita villages north of the Red River and leaped into Comanchería. The devastation was un-fathomable. Eastern Comanches stated that they lost two-thirds of their population, perhaps as many as sixteen thousand people. The epidemic also hit New Mexico, but it failed to spread among the nearby western Comanches, who had
shunned the province after Anza’s shock victory over Cuerno Verde. But even
with half of the Comanche nation spared, waves of horror and despair reverberated across Comanchería.⁶
It was in the aftermath of this catastrophe that Comanches finally began to
reassess their policies toward the Spaniards. With Native enemies edging into their domain, with their trade network in shambles, and with the eastern ranche-
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rías decimated by alien microbes, they found it practical and perhaps necessary to seek closer diplomatic and commercial ties with Spanish colonies. Eastern Comanches cut back their raiding into Texas in the winter of 1781–82, and in 1783 western Comanches opened peace talks in Santa Fe.⁷
Fortunately for Comanches, their desire for peace coincided with a parallel
process of political reevaluation on the Spanish side. That reassessment was brought about by the mixed consequences of the American Revolution for
Spain. In the treaty accords signed in Paris in 1783, Britain returned the Floridas to Spain, but it also granted the new United States a generous southern boundary on the thirty-first parallel. This outraged Spanish officials who insisted that their West Florida province extended in the north all the way to the Tennessee valley and the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Eager to secure access to the Mississippi frontage and southeastern fur trade, Americans refused to negotiate for a compromise, and so the Spaniards found themselves embroiled
in a bitter border dispute with a republic of “a new and vigorous people, hostile to all subjection, advancing and multiplying.”⁸ The Treaty of Paris thus created an unexpected predicament for the Spaniards. The acquisition of the Floridas fulfilled their long-standing dream of a continuous transcontinental empire in North America, and yet their position felt more threatened than ever.
Spain’s simultaneously strong and susceptible position spawned several dras-
tic foreign political schemes. Spanish officials closed the lower Mississippi to American shipping in order to isolate the settler-farmers in Kentucky and Tennessee from transportation and market outlets, but opened Louisiana and the
Floridas for American emigrants who promised to become Catholics and the
king’s vassals. But this policy of confining and co-opting the Americans was a mere emergency measure: Spain’s chief tactic in checking the expansionist
United States was a new secularized Indian policy.⁹
Lacking the demographic and military power to restrain the Americans,
Spanish officials set out to build extensive barriers of loyal Indians on both sides of the Mississippi valley to block the seemingly imminent American expansion to the Great Plains and northern Mexico. Instead of conversion and coercion, the traditional cornerstones of Spain’s Indian policy, the agents were now instructed to rely on treaties, trade, and gifts to win Indians’ allegiance. East of the Mississippi, the officials negotiated by 1784 agreements with Creeks, Alabamas, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, creating an extensive Indian-alliance
network that covered much of the area under dispute with the United States.
Carlos III then appointed Bernardo de Gálvez, Louisiana’s celebrated governor during the American Revolution and nephew of José de Gálvez, as the viceroy
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of New Spain. Gálvez’s jurisdiction was extended over the Interior Provinces, Louisiana, the Floridas, and Cuba in the hope that the energetic young officer could organize those wide-ranging dominions into a unified front against the United States.¹⁰
In May 1785, Gálvez sent a letter to Texas Governor Domingo Cabello, de-
manding that he match Spain’s recent diplomatic successes with southeastern
Indians on the western side of the Mississippi. All that Cabello had to show for his efforts at that point were a series of aborted treaty talks with the Taovayas and Tawakonis. He immediately began to plan a diplomatic mission to Comanchería and chose two emissaries: Pedro Vial, a French-born blacksmith and
Indian trader who had lived for several years among the Taovayas before his recent return to Texas, and Francisco Xavier Chaves, a vecino (non-Indian citizen) from New Mexico who had been captured by Comanches at the age of eight and
traded to the Taovayas after his adoptive Comanche mother died sixteen years later. Vial possessed intimate knowledge of the political and economic milieu of the southern plains, while Chaves was fluent in the Taovaya and Comanche
languages. Cabello equipped Vial and Chaves with two servants, six horses, four mules, four hundred pesos worth of gifts, and a daunting commission: to negotiate a treaty of peace with the eastern Comanches, who had raided and ravaged Texas for decades.¹¹
Guided by a delegation of Taovayas who were visiting Nacogdoches, Vial and
Chaves arrived in late August at a large Comanche ranchería stretching across a broad plain along the Red River. As the emissaries approached the Comanche village, they were immersed in an intricately orchestrated indigenous diplomacy in which gestures, touches, utterances, and rituals carried deep significance.
Some two hundred Comanches, moving in two lines, rode out from the ran-
chería with their weapons on display. Vial and Chaves unfurled a Spanish flag, the Comanches discharged gun volleys and then embraced the visitors. Vial,
Chaves, and the Taovaya guides were escorted to the lodge of the ranchería’s capitan, who placed their animals and goods under his protection and feasted the visitors with various meats and papas (potato-like tubers). When Vial and Chaves announced the purpose of their visit, the Comanche village began to
transform into a massive council ground. Arrows were sent to all directions to call the scattered eastern Comanche rancherías together, and within a week ten rancherías had arrived. Among the arrivals were “the two great capitanes of the nation”—Camisa de Hierro (Iron Shirt), so named for wearing a coat of mail
he had taken from a fallen Apache chief, and Cabeza Rapada (Shaved Head)
who shaved half of his head and kept the hair on the other half very long. Vial
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called the leaders of the eight other rancherías jefes (chiefs) or capitanes chiquitos (little captains), and remarked that each of them “brought some elder Indian principales and many young men.”¹²
With the majority of their members present, the eastern Comanches sponsored
several successive meetings. These, as recorded by Vial, open an illuminating window into the Comanche statecraft. The first meeting included Vial, Chaves, the two Taovaya chiefs, Guersec and Eschas, and a delegation of Comanche
leaders and elders. Vial and Chaves distributed gifts of tobacco, cloth, knives, vermilion, and beads and declared Spain’s desire for peace. Comanches appeared wary, however, demanding to know whether the Spaniards “had brought
some illness that would bring death to their nation.” Once convinced that the visitors were healthy and that it would be safe to assemble a large meeting, the chiefs “gave the order to their criers so that they would carry the word to all of those of their respective groups, with the instruction that they gather at night at the designated place to hold their own councils.” “Thereafter,
” Vial reported,
“one could hear a confusion of shouting that would burst out during the day, and murmuring throughout the night.” By dawn the Comanches decided to hold a
general council “so that all might hear from our own mouths the reason for our coming.”¹³
The grand council made a deep impression on Vial with its meticulous cere-
monialism, open yet hierarchical composition, and sheer size. “Carrying the
Spanish flag hoisted on a very tall pole,” he reported, “we presented it in a very large circle which all of the Indians had formed, seated on the ground as many as four deep, seeming in our opinion about 700.” The concentric rows of the
grand circle were occupied by the two head chiefs, the leaders of individual rancherías, and senior and junior warriors, and they were surrounded by “an infinity of young men, women, and children, who were standing.” The council was presided over by Camisa de Hierro and Cabeza Rapada, who introduced the emis-
saries “with great civility and courtesy” and made them “sit beside them in the first row of the center of the circle.” After the “indispensable” prelude of ritual smoking, Vial delivered his message in the “Taovayaz language, which all of the Cumanches understand and speak very well.”¹⁴
Vial began by drawing attention to Chaves, who as a former captive and
adopted Comanche personified the possibility of forging kinship-based political relations between the Comanches and Spaniards. He then warned the Comanches that they were about to be excluded from the circle of trade, gifts, and friendship Texas was presently building with other Indian nations. He related how he and Chaves had wept in front of “Capitán Grande” (Governor Cabello),
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pledging him to extend the alliance to the Comanches, who they insisted “were good people, very generous and very good friends to . . . [their] friends.” Finally, Vial presented Cabello’s personal peace offer, which rested on four pillars: general war against the Apaches, cessation of all other hostilities, mutualistic trade, and political gifts. “I want them not only to be my friends, but also of the nations who are my friends, and that if they want to enjoy the pleasure of fighting, they should make war against the Apaches and Lipanes who steal many horses and
mules from me. . . . I shall give my hand and I shall try to give them whatever I can. And finally, if they be my good friends, I shall order that traders go to their camps to provide all of the traffic that they need, in exchange of skins and whatever goods the said traders may sell. And besides that, every year at the time that I set for them, I shall try to have the capitanes and principales of the Cumanche Nation come to this Presidio of San Antonio, where I will give them a little present to assure them how highly I regard them.”¹⁵
When Vial concluded, Guersec took the floor to corroborate Vial’s assertion
that a genuine change had occurred in Spanish Indian policy. Cabello, the Taovaya assured, had committed to offer gifts and liberal trade that included guns, powder, and ammunition. Like Vial, Guersec issued a warning: “I let you know that it is more important for us to maintain friendship with the Spaniards than with you . . . if you continue to be foolish, we will turn our backs to you and we will join with the Spaniards who, after all, succor our needs.” Guersec’s words must have struck a chord among the Comanches, who had already lost most of
their trading links and were now in danger of being excluded from the Taovaya-Spanish coalition.¹⁶
After Guersec’s speech, “commotion erupted among all the Cumanches in
the circle,” and the meeting adjourned. To Vial it seemed that the ten gathered rancherías dissolved into a single consensus-seeking organism. “The criers spent the remainder of the . . . day talking with their respective groups so that they might understand everything we had related. The same happened at night. All
of the passageways of that ranchería were so full of bonfires that we thought that none of them might be able to sleep.” The two Taovaya chiefs, too, were involved in the talks, conferring in a private council with Camisa de Hierro, Cabeza Rapada, and the headmen of individual rancherías. By morning “all of the Cumanche capitanes and principales had agreed to make peace.”¹⁷ The grand council reconvened, each Comanche occupying the same spot as before, and the ceremonies from the previous day were repeated. Camisa de Hierro then delivered a formal reply to Spain’s offer. He emphasized Comanche understanding of what
constituted an acceptable peace, framing the accord in kinship terms.
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With great joy we have heard the good words that our Father, the Capitán
Grande of San Antonio, has sent us, which we all have embraced in our heart.
And thus mollified, we note that in all of the times that you have spoken to us, you have not disquieted us. . . . Therefore, forgetting the killings that the Spaniards have committed against our fathers, sons, and brothers, we are all very content, particularly knowing that our Father, the Capitán Grande of
San Antonio, does not like the Apaches nor Lipanes, against whom we make
war wherever we may find them. And thus, from now on, the war with our
brothers the Spaniards has ended. They will not see our footprints around San Antonio, for we will not subject them to any injuries or thefts. And thus, three capitanes chiquitos from our nation are already chosen, so that they may go with you to see what reception our Father, the Capitán Grande, accords us,
and what he says to them about the way that we are to commence the peace
that we have agreed to make with him, to prove the affection that we have for the Spaniards.¹⁸
Camisa de Hierro made Spanish noninterference in Comanche-Apache rela-
tions a condition for peace: “we shall remain ready to make a solid peace, once our Father, the Capitán Grande of San Antonio, accepts its wholeheartedly,
making for our part only the condition that he give us passage [through Texas]
and that he not oppose our making war against the Lipanes, our ancient ene-
mies.” When the chief concluded his statement, “he began to twirl the length of cloth that we had given him and he had on, and with that, such a shouting and whooping burst out from all those in the circle and from those who were
behind it, that they left us deafened for a long time.” That demonstration, Vial understood, was “a sign by all of the nation of accepting and agreeing to the said peace.” Two days later, Vial and Chaves set out on a return trip to San Antonio with three Comanche capitanes. ¹⁹
The three Comanche ambassadors received a cordial welcome in San Antonio.
They were paraded around the main streets and welcomed by Cabello at the
governor’s house. A few days later, a formal treaty, an elaborated version of the preliminary accord made in Comanchería, was concluded. Cabello, apparently
having taken to heart Vial’s notion that Comanches would remain peaceful only
“if they are given what is equivalent to the pillaging . . . they make when they are at war,” promised annual gifts to Comanche chiefs “as a manifestation of our good friendship.” He also pledged to send in licensed traders “who provide them with merchandise in exchange for hides.” The Comanche emissaries in turn
promised that their nation would cease all hostilities against Texas, return Spanish captives to Texas, and refrain from interactions with the enemies of Spain.
War against the Apaches, as Camisa de Hierro had insisted, was explicitly dis-
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cussed in the treaty, which stipulated that Comanches and Spaniards would act as brothers against the Apaches, their common enemy. Comanches were given a
free reign to make war on the Apaches in Texas, for the treaty only specified that they should seek a permit from Texas governor if they intended to pursue Lipans and Mescaleros into Coahuila.²⁰
After three weeks of t
alks, the Comanche delegates left, clad in Spanish
military uniforms, carrying canes of office and a white flag with a Burgundian cross, and escorted by forty-two Spanish soldiers. During the fall and winter several other Comanche chiefs visited San Antonio to broaden the peace. Their
travois were loaded with hides, peltries, and meat they intended to trade, and they often brought their families with them. They also offered Spanish officials Apache slaves who had been captured in Sonora, anticipating the wide-ranging geopolitical changes that the Comanche-Spanish alliance would soon engender across New Spain’s northern borderlands. Cabello, having discovered that it was “necessary to treat them [Comanches] with great love and consistency
because they are very sensitive and will not tolerate any rudeness,” opened the capital to the people who a few years ago had nearly obliterated the colony. He feasted Comanche chiefs at his residence, lavished them with gifts, and built their families a 144-f00t-long wattle-and-daub house on the banks of the San Antonio River, where the Indians could enjoy their daily baths.²¹
While Comanche-Spanish relations steered a new course in the east, Gov-
ernor Anza in New Mexico struggled to open conclusive peace talks with the
western Comanches. The shock effect of his victory over Cuerno Verde had
evaporated long ago, and although Comanches were again trading in Taos in
large numbers, the peace process had stalled. In October 1785 a Comanche
trading party revealed the reason for the deadlock: unable to agree over a common policy toward the Spaniards, the western Comanches had split into two
opposing blocks. Most Kotsoteka chiefs and rancherías favored general peace
with New Mexico, but they were resisted by the chiefs who had risen to power through their ability to lead successful raids into New Mexico. Some of the resistance had melted away with Cuerno Verde’s demise, but another powerful chief, Toroblanco (White Bull), had risen to lead the war faction. Toroblanco enjoyed wide support among the Yamparikas and Jupes, and the peace faction was losing ground. Anza sent word that he would not begin negotiations unless the western Comanches united behind one chief who could speak for all of them. To keep