Because the Comanche were on the move much of the time, unlike the “settled” Native peoples, it made no sense for them to have possessions or utensils that were in any way breakable. This means that fragile clay pottery was of no use to them. What they had in abundance as available material was the buffalo, and, as well as eating the animal, the Comanche made use of the horn, bones and hides for almost all of their household goods. The lining of the buffalo’s stomach made a water bag; it could also make a vessel which, when stretched and hung between a framework of sticks, made a sort of waterproof cooking “pot,” as described previously. Even the dung of the buffalo, fibrous and dry, was used as a fuel for fires.
For the Europeans, the Comanche were something of a double-edged sword. Well able to adapt any new circumstances to their own favor, they made good traders. However, their fearlessness and predilection for raids was unnerving. The Comanche were also involved in a seemingly endless series of wars with any and all of the other Great Plains tribes; this meant that the tribe were prey to political maneuvering and exploitation by the U.S. Government, as well as by the Spanish and French colonial settlers. There was very nearly a peace pact between the Comanche and the white men, but this was stymied when the Government refused to describe a boundary between the Comanche lands and the territory of Texas.
Despite all this seeming chaos, the Comanche were able to stay independent, and unlike other Indians, even managed to increase the scope of their territory. Tragically, it was not the politics of the white man that caused the most injury to the Comanche, but his diseases. The worst of these—smallpox—ravaged the tribe in 1817 and again in 1848. Measles and cholera also took their toll. The population of the tribe, it is estimated, would have dropped from approximately 20,000 to 5,000 by the 1870s.
It must have seemed a much easier prospect, faced with a weakened Comanche nation, for the U.S. Government to start forcing the tribe onto designated reservations toward the end of the 1860s. They offered a standard of living that included schools for the children, Christian churches, and money, in return for Comanche lands ranging to 62,000 square miles. In return for this, the Government suggested that the Comanche should squeeze themselves into fewer than 5,000 square miles—along with Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kiowa peoples. Part of this agreement was that the Government would put a stop to the white buffalo hunters who were slaughtering the animals on a grand scale. But the Government could not, or would not, stop the buffalo hunters, despite the agreement. Buffalo were a fundamentally important part of the Comanche way of life; therefore the tribe, under the leadership of White Eagle, retaliated by launching an attack on a group of white hunters in 1874. The Comanche were decimated; the survivors rounded up and forced onto the reservation. Fewer than ten years later, the buffalo were just about extinct, forcing an end to the traditional way of life of the Comanche. The last of the free members of the tribe moved onto the reservation in 1875, at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
These Comanche, few as they were, quickly became disillusioned with their supposedly ideal new way of life. A year later, fewer than 200 warriors were left to battle in the Buffalo Hunters War of 1877.
COMANCHE CODE
During the Second World War, the U.S. Government had the idea of using the Comanche language as a “code” to befuddle the enemy Germans. In order to do this, 17 young men were trained in the language. Ironically, the language had nearly died out after Comanche children were placed in boarding schools in the 19th century where they were encouraged to speak English, and punished for speaking their native language.
CONCOMLY
A Chinook chief, Concomly extended a friendly welcome to the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805 when it reached him and his tribe at the mouth of the Columbia River where it entered the Pacific Coast. His daughter would go on to marry Duncan McDougal, head of the Astor expedition which sought to take over the country on behalf of the United States. Concomly liked to display his power; he must have been an awe-inspiring sight for the white men, since he traveled with a retinue of some 300 slaves, who went before him carpeting the ground with beaver skins.
Concomly was notoriously accused of being charged with a plan to massacre some soldiers at a nearby garrison and raid the stores. Although this was not proved, Concomly offered to show his allegiance to the Americans by fighting on their side against the British in 1812.
After his death, Concomly’s skull—which had been subject to the “flattening” procedure whereby the infant’s skull was shaped while the bones were still soft—was sent to Britain, and regarded as a curiosity. However, it was returned to the U.S. in 1952.
CONESTOGA HORSE
Horses rapidly became invaluable to the Native Americans, used for traveling long distances, for hunting, and as pack animals. The Conestoga was a heavy horse, bred in Pennsylvania in the 18th century, which had the blood of a Flemish carthorse along with a British breed. Able to carry and drag heavy loads, the Conestoga was used for pulling wagons.
CONESTOGA WAGON
The wagon, typically seen in Wild West and cowboy movies, has a framework of hoops over which canvas is draped to give cover and provide accommodation to passengers and goods. These are the wagons that were regularly seen moving slowly along as wagon trains, and drawn either by cattle or by half a dozen Conestoga horses, for which the wagon was named. The Native Americans called the wagon the “tipi wagon.”
CONFEDERACY
Also called an allegiance or league, a confederacy was a union of two or more tribes, perhaps for military or political purposes. The Iroquois Confederacy is a good example of just how powerful strength in numbers, and a unified aim, can be.
CORN
See Maize
CORNPLANTER
“It is my wish and the wishes of my people to live peaceably and quietly with you.”
1770s–1836
A renowned Seneca chief, Cornplanter was born to a Seneca mother and a Dutch father, a fur trader, in the Genesee River area of New York. Initially Cornplanter—whose name in Seneca approximated to “the planter” or “by which one plants”—did not know that his father was white; it was only after repeated teasing by other children that his mother told him the truth. His father, Johannes Abeel, was living in Albany, and so Cornplanter visited him. The visit was amicable, but Cornplanter came away empty-handed. Subsequently, fighting on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War, Cornplanter captured his father and wanted him to remain among the tribe, but Abeel refused. Cornplanter also had a half-brother named Handsome Lake.
During the Revolutionary War, Cornplanter argued for neutrality, believing that the white men’s war should be fought by the white men and that the Iroquois should remain neutral.