Editing Comanche (section)

===Relationship with settlers===
[[File:Comanche Lookout Arthur T. Lee.jpg|thumb|Comanches watching an American caravan in West Texas, 1850, by the US Army officer, [[Arthur Tracy Lee|Arthur Lee]]]]
[[File:Comanchebraves.jpg|thumb|upright|Comanche warriors, c. 1867–1874]]
[[File:Chief Quanah Parker of the Kwahadi Comanche.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Quanah Parker]], prominent chief of the Comanche Indians with a feather fan; photo by James Mooney, 1892]]

The Comanche maintained an ambiguous relationship with Europeans and later settlers attempting to colonize their territory. The Comanche were valued as trading partners since 1786 via the [[Comanchero]]s of New Mexico, but were feared for their raids against settlers in Texas.<ref>Plummer, R., Narrative of the Capture and Subsequent Sufferings of Mrs. Rachel Plummer, 1839, in Parker's Narrative and History of Texas, Louisville: Morning Courier, 1844, pp. 88–118</ref><ref>Lee, N., Three Years Among the Comanches, in Captured by the Indians, Drimmer, F., editor, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1961, {{ISBN|0486249018}}, pp. 277–313</ref><ref>Babb, T.A., In the Bosom of the Comanches, 1912, Dallas: John F. Worley Printing Co.</ref><ref>Bell, J.D., A true Story of My Capture by, and Life with the Comanche Indians, in "Every Day Seemed Like a Holiday", The Captivity of [[Bianca Babb]], Gelo, D.J. and Zesch, S., editors, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 107, No. 1, 2003, pp. 49–67</ref> Similarly, they were, at one time or another, at war with virtually every other Native American group living on the South Plains,<ref>Lehmann, H., 1927, 9 Years Among the Indians, 1870–1879, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, {{ISBN|0826314171}}</ref><ref>Smith, C.L., 1927, The Boy Captives, San Saba: San Saba Printing & Office Supply, {{ISBN|0-943639-24-7}}</ref> leaving opportunities for political maneuvering by European colonial powers and the United States. At one point, [[Sam Houston]], president of the newly created [[Republic of Texas]], almost succeeded in reaching a [[peace treaty]] with the Comanche in the 1844 [[Treaty of Tehuacana Creek]]. His efforts were thwarted in 1845 when the [[Texas Legislature]] refused to create an official boundary between Texas and the Comancheria.

While the Comanche managed to maintain their independence and increase their territory, by the mid-19th century, they faced annihilation because of a wave of epidemics due to [[Eurasia]]n diseases to which they had no immunity, such as [[smallpox]] and [[measles]]. Outbreaks of smallpox (1817, 1848) and [[cholera]] (1849) took a major toll on the Comanche, whose population dropped from an estimated 20,000 in the late 18th century to just a few thousand by the 1870s.

The US began efforts in the late 1860s to move the Comanche into reservations, with the [[Treaty of Medicine Lodge]] (1867), which offered churches, schools, and annuities in return for a vast tract of land totaling over {{convert|60,000|sqmi|km2}}. The government promised to stop the buffalo hunters, who were steadily exterminating the great bison herds of the Plains, provided that the Comanche, along with the [[Apache Tribe|Apache]]s, [[Kiowa]]s, [[Cheyenne]], and [[Arapaho]]s, move to a reservation totaling less than {{convert|5,000|sqmi|km2}} of land, but the government did not prevent the slaughtering of the herds. The Comanche under Quenatosavit White Eagle (later called [[Isa-tai]] "Coyote's Vagina") retaliated by attacking a group of hunters in the Texas Panhandle in the [[Second Battle of Adobe Walls]] (1874). The attack was a disaster for the Comanche, and the US army was called in during the [[Red River War]] to drive the remaining Comanche in the area into the reservation, culminating in the [[Battle of Palo Duro Canyon]]. Within just 10 years, the bison were on the verge of extinction, effectively ending the Comanche way of life as hunters. In May 1875, the last free band of Comanches, led by Quahada warrior [[Quanah Parker]], surrendered and moved to the [[Fort Sill]] reservation in Oklahoma. The last independent Kiowa and Kiowa Apache had also surrendered.

The 1890 Census showed 1,598 Comanche at the Fort Sill reservation, which they shared with 1,140 Kiowa and 326 Kiowa Apache.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Frontier Forts > The Passing of the Indian Era|url=http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/indians.html|access-date=2022-08-20|website=www.texasbeyondhistory.net}}</ref>

====Meusebach–Comanche treaty====
The Peneteka band agreed to a peace treaty with the German Immigration Company under [[John O. Meusebach]]. This treaty was not affiliated with any level of government. Meusebach brokered the treaty to settle the lands on the Fisher-Miller Land Grant, from which were formed the 10 counties of [[Concho County, Texas|Concho]], [[Kimble County, Texas|Kimble]], [[Llano County, Texas|Llano]], [[Mason County, Texas|Mason]], [[McCulloch County, Texas|McCulloch]], [[Menard County, Texas|Menard]], [[Schleicher County, Texas|Schleicher]], [[San Saba County, Texas|San Saba]], [[Sutton County, Texas|Sutton]], and [[Tom Green County, Texas|Tom Green]].<ref name="Land">{{cite web|title=THC-Fisher-Miller Land Grant|url=http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/viewform.asp?atlas_num=5299009438&site_name=Fisher+-+Miller+Grant&class=5000|work=Texas Historic Markers|publisher=Texas Historical Commission|access-date=16 September 2011}}</ref>{{details|Fisher–Miller Land Grant}} In contrast to many treaties of its day, this treaty was very brief and simple, with all parties agreeing to a mutual cooperation and a sharing of the land. The treaty was agreed to at a meeting in San Saba County,<ref>{{cite web|title=THC-Comanche Treaty|url=http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/viewform.asp?atlas_num=5411000991&site_name=Comanche+Indian+Treaty&class=5000|publisher=Texas Historical Association|access-date=17 September 2011}}</ref> and signed by all parties on May 9, 1847, in [[Fredericksburg, Texas]]. The treaty was very specifically between the Peneteka band and the German Immigration Company. No other band or tribe was involved. The German Immigration Company was dissolved by Meusebach himself shortly after it had served its purpose. By 1875, the Comanches had been relocated to reservations.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Demallie|first1=Raymond J |last2=Deloria | first2=Vine |title=Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements and Conventions 1775–1979, Vol 1. |year=1999|publisher=University of Oklahoma|isbn=0-8061-3118-7|pages=1493–1494}}</ref>{{details|Meusebach-Comanche Treaty}} Five years later, artist [[Friedrich Richard Petri]] and his family moved to the settlement of [[Pedernales, Texas|Pedernales]], near Fredericksburg. Petri's sketches and watercolors gave witness to the friendly relationships between the Germans and various local [[Native American (Americas)|Native American]] tribes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Germunden|first=Gerd|title=Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections|year=2002|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-6420-5|author2=Calloway, Colin G |author3=Zantop, Suzanne |page=65}}</ref>

====Fort Martin Scott treaty====
In 1850, another treaty was signed in San Saba, between the United States government and a number of local tribes, among which were the Comanche. This treaty was named for the nearest military fort, which was [[Fort Martin Scott]]. The treaty was never officially ratified by any level of government and was binding only on the part of the Native Americans.<ref>{{cite book|last=Watson|first=Larry S|title=INDIAN TREATIES 1835 to 1902 Vol. XXII – Kiowa, Comanche and Apache|year=1994|publisher=Histree|pages=15–19}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Webb|first=Walter Prescott|year=1965|title=The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense|isbn=978-0-292-78110-8|publisher=University of Texas Press|pages=138–140}}</ref>{{details|Fort Martin Scott Treaty}}

====Cherokee Commission====
The [[s:Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache, 1892|Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache]] signed with the [[Cherokee Commission]] October 6–21, 1892,<ref>{{cite book|last=Deloria|first=Vine J Jr.|title=Documents of American Indian Diplomacy Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775–1979|year=1999|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-3118-4|pages=355, 356, 357, 358|author2=DeMaille, Raymond J}}</ref> further reduced their reservation to {{convert|480,000|acre|km2}} at a cost of $1.25 per acre ($308.88/km<sup>2</sup>), with an allotment of {{convert|160|acre|km2}} per person per tribe to be held in trust. New allotments were made in 1906 to all children born after the agreement, and the remaining land was opened to white settlement. With this new arrangement, the era of the Comanche reservation came to an abrupt end.

====Captive Herman Lehmann====
One of the most famous captives in Texas was a German boy named [[Herman Lehmann]]. He had been kidnapped by the [[Apache]], only to escape and be rescued by the Comanche. Lehmann became the adoptive son of Quanah Parker. On August 26, 1901, Quanah Parker provided a legal [[affidavit]] verifying Lehmann's life as his adopted son 1877–1878. On May 29, 1908, the [[United States Congress]] authorized the [[United States Secretary of the Interior]] to allot Lehmann, as an adopted member of the Comanche nation, 160 acres of Oklahoma land, near [[Grandfield, Oklahoma|Grandfield]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Zesch|first=Scott|title=The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier|year=2005|publisher=St. Martin's|isbn=978-0-312-31789-8|pages=239–241}}</ref>