Quanah the Warrior

Quanah escaped the Battle of Pease River with his younger brother peanuts. Quanah was twelve years old. He traveled and was chased over much of present-day Oklahoma until finding a band to take him in. Orphans had very low status in a band and Quanah had to prove himself to be accepted. He quickly mastered the skills of a Comanche warrior and as a teenager was an expert horseman and markesman with a bow and arrow. He eloped with the daughter of a war chief, and successfully eluded the angry fathers attempt to get his daughter back. He earned a reputation as a great warrior and gathered a large band of warriors as followers to earn the respect of his wife's father. Quanah led his band of warriors over much of the Comanche territory for many years. Quanah attacked a settlement of buffalo hunters at the second battle of Adobe Wells with several hundred warriors in 1874. This was the last great Comanche raid. US government sent General Ranald Mackenzie, who lead three thousand troops for over a year in search of Quanah and his band. General Mackenzie was able to find and massacre 1200 to 1400 of Quanah's horses at Palo Duro Canyon. WIth no way to hunt or to make war, Quanah surrendered to General Mackenzie in 1875 and agreed to go the the reservation near Lawton Oklahoma. The era of the Comanche warrior had come to an end. The era of the cowboy was about to explode from Texas to Montana.