Comanches

Name and language

There exist two explanations of the origin of the name Comanche , which is degeneration is term Ute komants , which means those which always fight us , that is to say Spanish camino ancho , meaning broad track . They were also called Paducah by the first French explorers and states-uniens, but their own preferred name is Numunuh , meaning the People . Comanches speak a Uto-Aztecan language, sometimes classified like a dialect Shoshone.

History

Birth of the Comanches tribes

Comanches were distinguished like a distinct group not very front 1700, when they were detached from the Shoshone S alive along the upper part Platte River with the Wyoming. This coincides with their acquisition of the Cheval, which allowed them a greater mobility in their search for better grounds of Chasse. Their original migration carried out them towards the central plains, from where they moved towards the south on a territory extending Arkansas River to the center from Texas. During this time, their population increased in an important way thanks to abundance of Bison S, an multitude of migrants shoshones, and the adoption of a significant number women and children made captive in the rival groups. Nevertheless, Comanches did not never form a linked tribal entity, and were divided into a dozen autonomous groups, which divided the same Langue and Culture, but which could be beaten between them as often as they cooperated. These groups were very flexible, and often were linked and separated, according to the circumstances.

Characteristic of Comanches

The Cheval was a key component of the emergence of a specific culture comanche. It was even suggested that it is the search for new sources of supply in horses among the Mexican colonists of the south (rather than the search for new herds of bisons) which initially carried out Comanches to be separated from Shoshones. Comanches could have even been the first Amerindian group of the Plains with completion to include the horse in their culture, and perhaps also introduced the horse near the other people of the Plains. About the middle of the nineteenth century, they provided horses to the tradesmen and to the American colonists French and , and then to the migrants crossing their territory on the road of the gold rush Californian. Many of these horses were stolen, and Comanches acquired soon a reputation of formidable robbers of horses and later of cattle. Their victims included/understood the Spanish colonists and American, as well as the other tribes of the Plains, which often led to the war. They were frightening adversaries, which developed complete strategies for the combat with horse with traditional Arme S.

The wars comanches

With Apaches and the Spaniards

In fact, the Guerre was an essential share of the life of Comanches. Their emergence with the turning of the eighteenth century and their migration towards the south put them in conflict with the Apaches, which lived already in the area and which started to migrate towards Texas and New Mexico, dominated by the Spaniards. To try to prevent the incursions apaches, the Spaniards offered to them of the assistance in their wars against Comanches, but these efforts failed most of the time, and Apaches had to leave the Plains of the South about the middle of the century. At this time, Comanches dominated the surface surrounding Texas Panhandle, including the west of Oklahoma and the North-East of New Mexico.

With the colonists

Comanches maintained relations ambiguous with Europeans and then the Americans trying to colonize their territory. They were appreciated as business partners, but they were also feared for their raids. In the same way, Comanches were in war at one time or another with each tribe of the Large Plains, thus leaving the possibility with the European colonial powers and the United States to handle the rival groups politically. In one moment, Sam Houston, the president of the incipient Republic of Texas, failed to succeed in signing a peace treaty with Comanches, but its efforts were destroyed when the legislative power texan refused to create a official Frontière between Texas and the territory comanche.

Whereas Comanches managed to maintain to them Indépendance and to even increase their territory, they passed close to annihilation in the middle of the nineteenth century because of vagueness of epidemic S introduced by the white colonists. The epidemics of Small pox (1817, 1848) and of Choléra (1849) were very expensive in human lives Comanches, whose population fell from approximately 20.000 in the middle of the century to only a few thousands about 1870.

Pacification

The efforts to move Comanches in reserves started at the end of the years 1860 with the Traité of Medicine Lodge (1867), which granted to them churches, schools and an annual income in exchange of a vast piece of ground exceeding the 160 000 km ². The government promised to stop the hunters of bisons, which decimated the large herds of the Plains, provided that Comanches, with Apaches, the Kiowas, the Cheyennes and the Arapahos, settle in a reserve of less than 13.000 km ² of surface. However, the government did not manage to prevent the hunters of bisons from massacring the herds, which brought Comanches, carried out by Isa-Tai (White Eagle) to tackle a group of hunters in Texas Panhandle at the time of the Bataille of Adobe Walls (1874). The attack was a disaster for Comanches, and the army was called to bring back Comanches remainders in the reserve. In hardly ten years, the bisons were about to die out, putting an end to the lifestyle of Comanches as hunters.

Meanwhile, the government negotiated the Jerome Agreement (1892) with Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches, still reducing their reserve to 1940 km ² for the price of 308,88 dollars per square kilometer. Each tribe obtained a territory corresponding to a small holding of 0,6 km ² by member of the tribe. In 1906, one grants new small holdings to all the newborns after the Jerome Agreement, and the remaining ground was opened with the installation of the colonists.

Comanches were not prepared with the life in a modern economic system, and much lost what it remained of their ground and their possessions. During the Second world war, much of Comanches left the reserves in Oklahoma in the search of financial opportunities in the towns of California and south-west. Today, they belong to the Amerindian people best educated of the United States. About half of the population comanche always lives in Oklahoma, around the town of Lawton. It is the place of the annual Pow-wow, when Comanches of all the country meet to celebrate their heritage and their culture.

Code comanche

Following the example Navajos on the peaceful theater, a group of soldiers of origin comanche was employed on the European theater during the Second world war to code and transmit messages of the American army. What was called the code comanche later.

See too

Amerindian
North-Amerindians
Tribes of North America

List by geographical surfaces.
alphabetical List Amerindian people of North America.

Indian Wars

External bonds

Comanche - Joshua Project

Random links: