The Red River War was pivotal in Texas history

Ozona—The Red River War was a pivotal series of conflicts that occurred in the Texas Panhandle and the neighboring regions in Oklahoma and Kansas between 1874 and 1875. The war was fought mainly between the US Army and several Native American tribes, to include the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. These tribes had robustly challenged the encroachment of settlers and the US government onto their lands in the Southern Plains since the first battle of Adobe Walls in 1864.

It was when these Native Americans attacked a group of thirty-some buffalo hunters in the second battle of Adobe Walls at the end of June in 1874 that the US Army command became determined to end the fighting; thus began the Red River War in the Fall the same year.

The Plains Indians were infuriated with the government’s failure to honor the terms of the Treaty of Medicine Lodge, signed in 1867. Their stand was that the US government had allowed buffalo hunters to decimate the bison herd, essential to their way of life, and to build a settlement in the middle of their agreed-upon hunting grounds.

Michael D. Pierce, from the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, “Many of the Indians, but by no means all, accepted their assigned reservations. Some continued to raid, using the reservations as safe havens from retaliation. The Comanche and Kiowa were somewhat restrained by the imprisonment of Kiowa leaders Satanta and Big Tree for their part in a raid in 1871 and the capture of 124 Comanche women and children in 1872, but the release of all these prisoners in 1873 led to intensified raiding. White settlers in Texas, Kansas, and Colorado were loud in their demand that the Army suppress these raids.” (Pierce – 2014)

Conflicts were sparked by a series of hostilities and violent encounters, paired with a declining bison herd, which was a key resource for the tribes. The government opted to end the warfare by forcibly suppressing any resistance and relocating the Native Americans onto reservations in Oklahoma.

“At this stage, the army and the Indian Bureau in effect declared war on all Indians off their assigned reservations. Officers and Indian agents enrolled the Indians still present on the reservations and designated all others as ‘hostiles.’ The army planned a five-pronged campaign to put constant pressure on the Indians considered to be enemies. Army departmental boundaries were ignored, and troops were allowed to follow Indians onto the reservations.”

Under the leadership of commanders like Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie from Fort Concho, the US military launched a series of campaigns to subdue the tribes, employing a strategy that targeted their food supplies and mobility. One of the more significant battles was the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, where Mackenzie's forces destroyed numerous Native American villages, horses, and their vital winter supplies.

“The most famous encounter between the army and the Indians was at Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle where the Fourth Cavalry, led by Col. Mackenzie, broke up a large encampment of Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne, killing only a few Indians but capturing and slaughtering about fourteen hundred horses. 

“No one battle, however, accounted for the defeat of the Indians. It was rather the constant and unrelenting pressure brought to bear by the various columns, some of which remained in the field until January 1875. Indians who had fled the reservations began to return as early as October, and by the spring of 1875 only some bands of Kwahadi Comanche, led by Mow-way and Quanah Parker, were still at large. Mackenzie, now commanding at Fort Sill in Indian Territory, sent post interpreter Dr. J. J. Sturms to negotiate the surrender of these Indians. Quanah Parker's band came into Fort Sill on June 2, 1875, marking the end of the Red River War.” (Pierce – 2014)

The Red River War effectively ended the traditional way of life for the Southern Plains tribes and resulted in their relocation to reservations in Oklahoma, marking what some consider a significant and sorrowful chapter in both Texas and Native American history.