Fifteen hundred to two thousand years ago, a new group of people appeared in the Texas Panhandle. These were the Palo Duro People who brought with them some new concepts: the bow and arrow, and pottery. Perhaps these people also brought the concept of the bedrock mortar into our area. These deep holes, worked into large boulders through years of use were probably used to grind mesquite beans, sumac seeds, hackberries, and other seeds before cooking. Associated with these we sometimes find the pestle, a large stone shaped like a baton which was used in the mortar for grinding. These people came into the Texas Panhandle from the west bringing their coarsely formed pottery and small deeply notched arrowpoints.

      A few hundred years later another group similarly equipped came from the east. We call these people the Plains Woodland People. Like the previous group, they had the bow and arrow, but their pottery was a cord-marked variety and their points had only shallow notches at the corners. Perhaps they brought with them the bowl-shaped metate with its mano for grinding corn. If so, they may have been the first to grow crops here, though the evidence is lacking to prove this theory.

      Nine hundred or a thousand years ago these Woodland Peoples began building houses using the white dolomite rock as a building stone. From neighbors to the north they acquired the art of side notching their points for hunting bison, which become more abundant during this period. These peoples perhaps through immigration from outside areas became more suited to living on the plains and are called the Plains Village Indians.

     Around the year 1000 AD, then, two groups of people were living in the Southern Plains. One group, called the Plains Woodland People had come into the plains from the East, bringing with them the bow and arrow, and cord-marked pottery.(Hyde) The other people moved in from the Southwest, and are today called the Palo Duro people. Like the Woodland peoples they had both the bow and arrow and pottery, but their pots were a dense brown-ware much thicker than the typical cord-marked pot, and smoothed on the surface. It is still unclear if these two groups were contemporaries or if the Palo Duro Culture was somewhat earlier and had retreated westward before the Woodland peoples entered the Southern Plains. House types among either of these groups are unknown.

   It may have been the Woodland people who first built the houses, the remains of which now dot the Great Plains from Canada to Northern Texas. At any rate, the builders of these houses used cord-marked pottery, though their arrowheads were side-notched rather than corner-notched as were those of the Woodland people. This was the perfect type of point for hunting bison or buffalo, and may have come from the Athabaskans living to the Northwest of the Great Plains. The population in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles increased about the time the houses were first built, and it is possible that the perennial springs in these areas provided the much needed water for a large-scale migration into the area.

   The presence of burned seeds shows that occasionally beans and squash were also grown, though corn seems to have been much more important. The presence of smoking pipes indicates that tobacco was grown or traded from neighbors, and the presence of shuttles from looms indicates some type of fiber, probably cotton, though this was surely traded into the Southern Plains from the Southwest.

   The Plains Village Indians had an extensive trade network extending principally to the Southwest, but in other directions as well. From the Pueblo Indians they obtained obsidian from the Jemez Mountains in North Central New Mexico, and turquoise from the same area. Olivella seashell beads were traded through the pueblos from the Gulf of California. Catlinite or pipestone was obtained from Minnesota. One of the most important trade items however was the painted pottery from the eastern Pueblos. This was important because it helped to date the Plains Villagers.





       Exactly when the Apaches first came into the Southern Great Plains is not known at present. They were certainly present by around 1400 if not before. Perhaps at first they were friendly traders, trading buffalo meat and skins to the Plains Villagers for Alibates Flint and other commodities. Tree ring studies in the Great Plains and Southwest along with a science called paleoclimatology have shown that in the 1400s a drought developed. Studies in our area indicate that as things became progressively drier the buffalo was reduced in numbers. The proportion of antelope bones seems to increase in sites dated to the early 1400s. (Duffield p. 265)

   Coronado left Tiguex on April 23, 1541. With him were perhaps 1000 horses, 500 head of cattle, and around 1500 people. The caravan went from Tiguex to Pecos, and four days later crossed the Pecos river on a hastily prepared bridge. They came upon the Llano Estacado or stockaded plains near present Newkirk and soon encountered their first buffalo. Here, near the present Texas-New Mexico border, the expedition first encountered the tipis of the Querecho Apaches who traded with Queres Pueblo. They neither planted, nor harvested corn, but subsisted on the buffalo and all its by-products. The skins were used for tipi covers, clothes, shoes, and ropes. From the sinews they made thread with which they sewed the clothes and the tipi covers. They made awls from the bones and used the dung for fuel. The buffalo were the only source of food for these people according to the various chroniclers, who said that they ate the meat raw or very rare, ate the fat, and drank the blood. They used the dry meat in making jerky and pemmican. They used the large intestine to store blood to drink when they were thirsty. They used the contents of the buffalo stomach as food, drinking the juices and throwing away the grass and plant material. In skinning the buffalo, they placed the animal on its belly, and opened the back with a flint knife hafted to a stick. They traded the dried buffalo meat to the eastern pueblos for corn, cotton cloth, and pottery.

   By 1550 the Querecho Apaches who were living near Acoma were coming into the Pueblo settlements to trade deer, rabbit, and pronghorn antelope skins for corn and cloaks of cotton. This way of life continued until around 1630 when the Apaches acquired the horse. This allowed the younger men more freedom to make quick raids into the New Mexican settlements. After 1630 the new way of life of trade/raid gradually became more common. (Hyde). The Vaquero Apaches were living east of the Pecos River and were trading with Picuris Pueblo and Taos. They traded meat, tallow, hides, and salt to the Pueblos for corn, pottery, cotton cloaks, and turquoise.

   In 1622, items used in trading by the Apaches included skins used for clothing, sacks, tents, cuirasses, footwear, and other uses. The hair was left on some of the skins, but removed from others. Don Filipe Sotolo Osario sent out a party of Indians who accidentally attacked a tribe of Vaquero Apaches who had recently vowed to become Christians. They captured a number of slaves and killed the chief. In 1625 when the Apaches were on a trading venture, the whole rancheria went along including women and children. They lived in tents made of buffalo skins, thin and well tanned which were carried on pack trains of dogs harnessed with light pack saddles. These dogs were of medium size and 500 might be in one train, each behind the one before.

   In 1629, Governor Manuel de Silva called a meeting of New Mexico frontiersmen who had been out on the plains to discuss the possibilities of an expedition against the Apaches. Because the proposed expedition never took place, the Apaches became bolder. The Wichita tribes from Quivera were crossing the plains at this period to trade with the Pueblos at Taos. In 1637, Governor Martinez de Baeze was forcing the Pueblo Indians to procure skins and piñon nuts for him which he in turn shipped to Mexico.

   By 1638, Governor Luis de Rosas was using the Pueblo of Pecos as a purchase point for mantas, hides, and tanned skins. Late in the summer, he sponsored a trading and slaving expedition to the plains during which, friendly Apaches were attacked, taken prisoner, or killed. The slaves obtained were used in the governor's workforce, or sent to Nueva Viscaya for sale. These attacks on the Apaches horrified the people of Pecos, since these Apaches were their friends and trading partners.

   The Apaches now began a policy of raid and trade, using some periods for trading, and others for raiding. Open warfare broke out, and by 1640 was a regular occurrence. In spite of the Apaches, the Wichita tribes were making regular trading visits across the plains to Taos Pueblo in New Mexico from their home base in Kansas. By this time, Indians from the Missouri River region were traveling eastward, trading in the English and French settlements for powder, lead, knives, and iron for spear points.(Sandoz 1964 p. 53.)





       A trading expedition under Diego Romero entered the Plains in the summer of 1660 and found that the former Plains Village Indians were still under attack from the Apaches, who were taking slaves. On the Rio Colorado of Texas, the expedition camped with the Apaches under chief Don Pedro. In a special ceremony, the Apaches made Romero and Pueblo Chief El Carpintero into Apache Chiefs. They placed them on buffalo skins and used reed whistles and flutes in the ceremonies which included orations, mock battles, smoking of a pipe, and a marriage rite in which each took an Apache wife.

   Beginning at this time, Spanish trading expeditions became more common onto the Southern Great Plains. In 1682, LaSalle reached the Gulf of Mexico and claimed all its waters and its tributaries for France, and in 1687 La Salle's second in command Henri Joutel encountered mounted Indians in East Texas who were probably Apaches. The Pawnees and Wichitas were now trading with the French, who were interested in hides, skins, furs, and pelts. Early in 1693, Don Juan de Ye, Captain of the Pecos Indians, visited Governor de Vargas in Santa Fe and became a close ally until his death the following year. When he visited again in April, he said the Apache rancheria was fourteen days away and that it was ten days to where the buffalo range began. There were three Apaches with him at this time, and they invited the Spanish to come to their rancheria on the plains to trade. Antonio Valverde took a force and went to Pecos on April 6, 1694 where he purchased meat and skins and promised to return in October for more trade.

   The use of horse and gun soon spread from the Southwest to the Great Plains. Raids on horseback originating in New Mexico and the Southern Great Plains gave the Apaches many Wichita and Pawnee slaves. In 1694 when they were brought into the trading fair in Taos, the Spanish refused for the first time to buy them, so the Apaches killed them rather than turn them loose. (Hyde) The "Navajos" brought Pawnee plunder to the trading fair in Taos in 1699. This plunder included French carbines, cannons, sword belts, jewels, waistcoats, shoes, and brass kettles. In 1706, Governor Cuerbo Valdes dispatched Juan de Ulibarri to El Cuartelejo to bring back the Taoseños who had run away in 1696. Ulibarri travelled northeast from Rayado Creek to the headwaters of the Canadian River where he met several Apache bands including the Jicarilla under Ysdalnisdael (El Cojo - The Lame One). He found them living and farming in the area. Another chief at this time was Ucate for whom Ocate Creek was named. Archeological excavations in Northeastern New Mexico have shown that these people were sedentary, growing corn and other crops and using micaceous pottery, the mano and metate, side notched arrowpoints, and bone awls. They were using turquoise, obsidian, and Alibates Flint. Clay Pipes, pueblo pottery, glass, Spanish Majolica ware, and a few iron tools indicate trade with both Spanish and Pueblos. Deer, antelope, and bison were being hunted. A new name now appears among the Apaches. Ulibarri was the first to use the term Jicarilla for the Quinne-Inde in 1706. (Hyde)

   Ulibarri travelled on to the Purgatorie basin where he encountered the Penaxaye Apaches. They had crops of corn, watermelons, pumpkins, and kidney beans, as well as buffalo hides, plums, and tamales and had been in contact with the French who had given them fowling pieces, clothing, short swords, two guns, iron axes, and the foot of a golden chalice. In addition to the 80 horses taken by the Indians, the Spanish recovered 120 more horses, saddles, bridles, knives, and spurs. It was noted that the Apaches had saddles of the Spanish type, but painted red, blue, green, and white. The Indians also had hats, knives, bridles, iron stirrups, spearheads, ribbons, sugar, corn, pinole, salt, buffalo and deer skins, and beads of all colors. The French were now active throughout the intermontane west, trading colored beads, milk beads, black lead, gun powder, sugar, blankets, coats, guns, flint, knives, axes, tea, paint, long meat knives, vermilion, and kettles for hides, furs, pelts, and skins, particularly beaver. (Sandoz p. 137) Apache raids into San Antonio continued through 1741. French traders now became common on the Southern Plains. Trade was mostly in skins, with a beaver skin being worth 3 marten skins, 1 fox skin, 1 moose skin, 1 fisher skin, 1 bear cub skin, 2 wolverine skins, 2 otter skins, 2 deerskins, 1 pound castoreum, 10 pounds of feathers, 8 moose hooves, or four fathoms of netting. One black bear hide was worth two beaver skins.

   Antonio Duran de Armijo reported that on February 27, 1748 Captain Panfilio and his Comanches entered Taos Pueblo on a trading expedition. They stated that some of the goods they had were from 33 frenchmen who had visited their village. Later bands who came to Taos stated that the French had traded many muskets to the Comanches in exchange for mules and other goods. The French left two traders in the Comanche village of 100 tipis on the Jicarilla River. A temporary peace was made with the Comanches at Taos in 1752, but lasted less than a year. The Jicarilla and Carlana Apaches still lived near Pecos. Spanish traders were traveling down the Platte as far as the Niobrara and Arikara villages, and these people traded with other people further east and north, so Spanish Trade goods could end up with the Assiniboins in North Dakota. Jean Chapuis and Luis Feuilli arrived at Santa Fe in August of 1752, where they were arrested and their goods confiscated. An Inventory of the goods included flowered silk, muslin, cambric, purple cloth, calamanco, lace, lace on black silk, woollen moulton, other woolen goods, linen cloth, cotton cloth, black and red ribbon, chemises, shirts, beaver hats, burro belly hats, woolen caps, scarlet caps, cotton caps, shoes, gloves, handkerchiefs, thread, camels hair, steel, copper, small hoes, large hoes, thongs, augers, awls, files, hatchets, swabs, large knives, medium knives, scissors, thimbles in three grades, pins, needles, chocolate, peppercorns, wine, brandy, vermilion, gum, sealing wax, hawk bells, paper, copper candle sticks, puzzles, crosses, combs in three grades, metal clasps, large mirrors, glass beads, finger rings, a bull fighting cape, powder, balls, guns, musket stones, and irons to strike fire from flint.







       During the next few years, French traders virtually disappeared from the plains, especially those from Canada and Illinois. The traders from Louisiana still made trips to the Wichita and Taovayas villages on Red River. The French and Indian war in the east kept all of the French settlements in a constantly harried state, and every able-bodied man was needed for the war effort.

   In 1765, the French trader Robert Rogers suggested that 100 canoes be outfitted for the trade, each of which would carry 6000 pounds of merchandise and 1000 pounds of supplies for the traders. Trade goods would include bales of strouds, blankets, frieze, coats, bed gowns, calico, linen shirts, leggings, ribbons, beads, vermilion, gartering, gunpowder, flint steels for fire starting, gun screws, brandy, iron work, cutlery, guns, mirrors, combs, brass kettles, tobacco, shot and ball, silver, and wampum.

   In sharp contrast to the goods for the Indian trade is a list of supplies for New Orleans in 1766. This included cloth of all kinds, cotton socks, gloves, gold and silver braid, black and white beaver hats, nails, flagstones from France, window glass, paving, buffalo robes, French and English Robes, bedspreads, umbrellas, shoes, boots, paper, sealing wax, cards, French doilies, table linen, napkins, wine, brandy, molasses rum, white sugar, coffee, French flour, butter from Flanders, olive oil, salt meat from Ireland, salt cod, brandied fruits, anchovies, capers, olives, raisins, almonds, cheese, soap in bars, tallow, mushrooms, cinnamon, hams, tongues, bear fat, vinegar, guns for trade, powder, flints, balls for guns, knives in several sizes, clasp knives, yellow copper kettles, kettles with lids, copper wire for jewelry, vermilion, verdigris, alum, wad hock(wormer) for guns, awls, steel for striking flint, round bells, large axes, medium axes, hatchets, hatchets with pipe, hat bands, hats, plumes, trade shirts, blankets, bedspreads, woollen garters, belts of silk, wool yarn, and wooden combs. While some of this is obviously for the Indian trade, things like French Doilies, butter from Flanders, and soap in bars was obviously for the citizens of New Orleans so they could live in the style to which they were accustomed. (Sanchez 1988)

   Though Santa Fe Trade had been opened by the French beginning about 1750, after the French and Indian War, it was the British and finally the Americans who profited from it. (Nasatir p. 88) In 1769 the transfer of Louisiana to Spain was completed. Governor Alejandro O' Reilly abolished slavery in Louisiana. Traders were forbidden to buy horses or mules from the Wichita since these had usually been stolen in Texas or New Mexico. When not at war, the Wichita tribes supplied the Comanches with weapons and agricultural produce. English traders were living at Natchitoches, Louisiana at this time. San Antonio now consisted of 59 stone, adobe, and mud houses and 79 wooden huts. The population was between four and five hundred. (Connor 1975 p. 88)

   Recovering from the French and Indian War, French Traders had by this time moved back into the plains, but they were now under control of the Spanish. French traders got around the Spanish ban on guns by slipping into the British zone in Illinois. The Osage were re-armed first and began raiding the Wichita forcing them southward from Oklahoma, but soon the Comanches also received French guns. Athanaze de Mezieres was appointed agent for the Texas and Red River Indians. Barón Juan Maria de Ripperdá the new governor arrived in 1770.

   The Wichitas had a new village on the upper Brazos River. The huts were constructed of earth because this country lacked the timber for support of grass lodges. They were trading this year with the Skidi Pawnee on the Missouri River. The English traders were using the rivers like highways to reach the Indian villages, and had given the Wichita firearms by 1772. A group of Skidi Pawnee left the Missouri River at this time and went to the Red River where they became part of the Taovayas band of the Wichita Tribe. The Taovayas continued to trade with the former French traders of Louisiana. Governor Riperda of Texas sent them presents to encourage Texas trade. In spite of the supposed peace treaty with the Comanches the previous year, they were raiding from the plains east of New Mexico all the way into Albuquerque.

   The Lipans constant wars with the Comanches and Wichita confed-eration had not gone well, and they continued their movement southward. They came into contact with the Mayeye Tonkawas, the Cocos, and their relatives the Karankawas, and joined them in their illegal trade with British pirates who traded European goods for honey, pecans, robes, and women slaves. Guns from Louisiana were traded to these tribes in exchange for pelts, furs, and hides. (Schilz 1987 p. 27) The Lipans contribution included buffalo robes, mules, horses, meat, and pemmican and as usual they wanted firearms in exchange.

   De Mezieres again passed through the Tawakoni villages in August 1779 on his way south to San Antonio. The Comanches drove the Lipan Apaches from their lands in West Texas. There had been a shortage of beef in Louisiana which was now Spanish, and Governor Bernardo Galves of Louisiana requested permission to buy beef cattle in Texas. Domingo Cabello was Governor of Texas and Teodoro de Croix was commander of the Interior Provinces. The deal was worked out, and the Texas beef cattle industry had a new customer. (Connor 1975 pp 97 -100) This cattle deal began the first real growth that Texas had seen and brought prosperity to the province. This prosperity lasted until 1803 when Louisiana was sold to the United States, and then further trade was forbidden, though trade probably continued in a beef black market.

   The trading firm owned by Samuel Davenport now established a trading post at Nacodoches and soon became the leading American firm engaged in Indian trade. American and European goods were exchanged for buffalo robes, furs, horses, mules, and pemmican. Though still considered illegal by the Spanish authorities, this trade was allowed to continue, simply because the Texas government didn't have the resources to stop it. (Schilz 1987 p. 35)

   In 1795, peace talks broke down at Arispe when the Apaches became suspicious and fled the barracks killing all the people they encountered. Three fourths of the Arikaras had been wiped out by smallpox by this time. The Plains Apache lived on the Platte, and had been greatly reduced by the smallpox epidemic. Trade goods for the Norteños (Wichita and allied tribes) included cloth, blankets, two red and two blue uniforms, vermilion, eight fifty-pound bundles of tobacco, six dozen knives, 1000 needles, 108 pair of scissors, 12 hoes, 100 awls, 12 large axes, 12 hatchets, 24 small bells, 54 mirrors, 42 jingles, four bundles of beads of all colors, seven pounds of steel wire, one pound of gold wire, 100 combs, 12 rifles, 75 lbs. of powder, 150 lbs. of lead bullets, 100 flints, 100 gun rods, and seven bundles of burlap sacks. Quiscat, chief of the Wacos accompanied a group of Kichai and Wichita to Nacadoches in the spring.



   By 1800, the Taovayas constituted two thirds of all Wichita. The Comanches traded Apache slaves to the Wichita who also traded with the French for powder, shot, knives, and cloth. Indian trade goods included corn, maize, melons, squash, pumpkins, and tobacco. The Wichita villages on the Red River were now a crossroads of cultures. The Coahuiltecans had disappeared by now, and the Tonkawa bands had united to form the Tonkawa tribe. The sale of Louisiana was hard on the Texas economy, since beef sales to Louisiana were now forbidden. Texas beef must now be sold only to Mexico or New Mexico, or smuggled across the United States border.

       In 1804 the Comanches were at war with the Pawnees. The Snakes still hunted the buffalo at the Three Forks of the Missouri, but had moved their camps across the mountains. The Snakes and Comanches were trading at the Hidatsa villages bringing skins of bighorn sheep, mountain goat, marten, lion, and winter killed wolf as well as herbs and dried meat to trade for pipestone, and from the north reindeer horn, white bear skins, and white fox pelts. The trader LaRoque brought big and small hatchets, knives, twist tobacco, tinder boxes, awls, rings, vermilion, several kinds of beads, bullets and powder. From the east, the Hidatsas obtained guns, ammunition, corn, kettles, axes, knives, clothing and other goods for which the Snakes and Comanches traded Buffalo Robes, leggings, and shirts made of bighorn sheep.

   In 1808, Francisco Amangual found Ysambanbi(Handsome Wolf) in Yellowhouse Canyon. Some of them were wearing three cornered hats, red greatcoats with collars and cuffs of blue, and white buttons. Many had red neckties. The Taoseños were liscensed to go to the Kiowas for trade. The Taovayas, Wichita, and Kichai bands were still on Red River in 1809. Ciboleros left New Mexico in June and October for the buffalo plains. In June, they hunted the bulls because they were fattest in the summer. In October, after the harvest, they returned and hunted the cows which were fatter at this time. The buffalo hide was more valuable in October also, since the animals had a fresh winter coat which was thick and woolly. The Ciboleros would camp where the smoke from the campfire would not cause the buffalo to stampede. Ten to twelve thousand buffalo were killed annually, but there was no noticible decrease in the size of the herds from year to year. Elk were also hunted and the skin called a chamois was larger than a steer hide and tanned white.

   The Lipans soon began trading with the Austin colony, trading horses, mules, buffalo hides, bear grease, pemmican, pecans, and other natural products for tools and items such as barrel hoops, wagon tires, frying pans and other metal implements which could be made into arrowheads.( Schilz 1987 p. 42) The American colonists were not squemish about accepting horses and other items stolen by the Lipans in Mexico. (Schilz 1987 p. 44)

   In 1825, American traders brought cloth, cinnabar, guns, and powder, to trade with the Wichitas and Comanches. The Indians around Nacadoches had plows, spades, and hoes given them by the Americans. They supplied the Nacadoches garrison with corn, potatoes, beans, melons, and other vegetables.

   By this time, the beaver had become a profitable business in New Mexico. The New Mexican trappers were given licenses which they then sold to Anglo trappers who trapped, snared, or shot the beavers. Many of these beaver pelts were considered to be illegal, so they were confiscated. There was a large warehouse in Santa Fe in 1827 filled with contraband pelts which were deteriorating and needed to be sold.

   Caravans from the United States would arrive in Santa Fe in July and there would be a fair-like atmosphere. Merchandise from the United States was extremely cheap and considered to be a good bargain. The caravan would return to the United States in August loaded with beaver since they had no duty to pay on beaver at the customs entry. The wagons were pulled by oxen which wore moccasins made from tanned buffalo hides. Vermilion, knives, biscuit, bread baked in ovens, gun powder, awls, and trinkets were traded to the Indians for valuable furs.

   In the late 1820s Jean Louis Berlandier visited the Comanches and other tribes and collected information on their lifeways. He found that in times of peace the Comanches came to Bexar to sell buffalo hides, deerskins, and beargrease to the inhabitants who traded ammuniton for these products. In 1827, General Bustamente negotiated a peace with the Comanches. The Comanches however formed a multiplicity of independent tribes, and each tribe kept the peace as it saw fit. They went into Santa Fe, where they traded bear grease, buffalo meat and furs for shot, powder, loaves of sugar, silver ornaments for their horses, swords which they used to tip their lances, or cheap cloth. Pelts taken included deer, bear, antelope, beaver, and otter. Domestic horses and cattle had gone wild in parts of the Comanche territory and they easily hunted these formerly domestic animals for food. Buffalo were still the favorite game animal, and were hunted with the bow and arrow and the lance. Lances were thrust not thrown, and a mounted Comanche would often charge buffalo with this weapon. In warfare, only the bravest men were allowed to use the lance. Shields were circular and made from the neck skin of old buffalo bulls.

        In 1832 Albert Pike's expedition found a Comanchero road running from below Santa Fe to the Brazos River in Texas. They met some Comancheros who had been trading with the Comanches. They traded hard bread, blankets, punche, and beads to the Indians for buffalo robes, bear skins, and horses. The Comanches at this time ranged from a point 400 miles west of the Arkansas Territory to the Rocky Mountains and southward to the Rio Grande. At times however the Pawnee as well as the Kiowa were to be found on the South Canadian and southward. The Comanche followed the buffalo and in winter were to be found on the Pecos and Rio Grande and in summer on the Canadian and Cimmaron, but at times they reversed this, so they might have been found in either range at any season. The Comanches obtained guns and possibly blankets from the Snakes who were supplied by trappers and traders. Pike traded tobacco and vermilion to a small band of Comanches for wood and dried buffalo meat. Tobacco was usually obtained from the Comancheros. In December a party of men from Taos was attacked by the Comanches on the Canadian River 200 miles east of Santa Fe. The building of Bent's fort on the Arkansas had caused the Cheyenne and Arapaho to move southward from the Black Hills.

   The Texan-Santa Fe Expedition continued on until they were captured by the New Mexican forces and sent to Mexico. When the Kiowa and Comanche would trade with the Cheyenne, they wouldn't trade for horses, since they had plenty, but traded their horses to the Cheyenne for guns, blankets, beads, calico cloth, and metal kettles. In May 1844, presents for the Wichitas and Wacos included weeding hoes, tin cups, yankee hoes, tin pans, frying pans, brass kettles, large and small axes, squaw axes, hatchets, lead, brass wire, butcher knives, blue cloth, domestic cloth, bed ticking cloth, vermilion cloth, four yards of strouding, three dozen fine combs, and tobacco.    During the Civil War, over 100,000 head of cattle were taken by the Comanches and sold to new Mexican Traders (Comancheros), probably in or near the Texas Panhandle.

   By the late 18th and early 19th century, Anglo and Spanish settlements were trading with the Indians in Texas. Numerous accounts exist of these trading ventures and lists of trade goods taken to the Indians. Likewise, many of these sites have been excavated, and a list of artifacts recovered shows some of the relationships with these early trade goods. Though the two lists don't matach perfectly, it is surprising just how many items are found in both lists.

       



cloth, blankets, uniforms, ribbons ,vermillion paint, tobacco, knives, needles, scissors, hoes,
awls, axes, hatchets, bells, jingle bells, mirrors, beads (all colors), steel wire, gold wire,
copper wire (for ornaments), , combs, rifles, powder, lead bullets, flints, gunrods, burlap sacks,
copper kettles, short trousers with buckles, knife handles.

Materials recovered in various excavations: buttons, European pipes, knives, metal fragments, scissors
awls, axes, wedges, bells, tinklers, glass fragments, trade beads, finger rings, bracelets,
flint lock gun parts, bullets, gun flints, ram rod fragments, kettle fragments, knife handles,
sword guard, chisels, metal arrowpoints, bridle parts, french coins.