Comanche

The Comanche /kəˈmæntʃi/ (Comanche: Nʉmʉnʉʉ) are a Native American nation from the Great Plains whose historic territory consisted of most of present-day northwestern Texas and adjacent areas in eastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, western Oklahoma, and northern Chihuahua. The Comanche people are federally recognized as the Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.[1]

The Comanche were the dominant tribe on the southern Great Plains in the 18th and 19th centuries. They are often characterized as “Lords of the Plains” and, reflecting their prominence, they presided over a large area called Comancheria which a modern historian has characterized as the “Comanche Empire.”[2] Comanche power was based on bison, horses, trading, and raiding. They hunted the bison of the Great Plains for food and skins; their adoption of the horse from Spanish colonists in New Mexico made them more mobile; they traded with the Spanish, French, Americans and neighboring Native American peoples; and (most famously) they waged war on and raided European settlements as well as other Native Americans.[3] They took captives from weaker tribes during warfare, using them as slaves or selling them to the Spanish and later Mexican settlers. They also took thousands of captives from the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers and incorporated them into Comanche society.[4]