Essays
Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado
The Comanche War Trail was the result of the politics of Mexico
July 25, 2007
In the fall of 1851 Macaria Leal stood on the dusty main street of San Carlos (southeast of Presidio del Norte.) Bajo Del Sol stood to his left. Mucho Toro nudged his right shoulder and told him in Comanche, “The trader said he would meet us as the sun went down. Where is he? I don’t trust him. He might have told the soldiers about us.” The mother of the two Comaches, Tabe Pete, whacked Mucho Toro’s head from behind, “Shut up, you fool!”
The humongous Comanche woman would even harangue Bajo del Sol, the war leader of the Southern Comanches. His bravery in battle was legendary, and his political acumen had convinced all of the Southern Comanche bands to follow his strategies during the annual raids into Mexico. She was loud, pushy, and scared of nothing. Bajo del Sol had learned to be as tough as her, but Mucho Toro had not – he was often clumsy, awkward, hesitant, and he stuttered when he was scared.
The year before Bajo del Sol had met with Colonel don Emilio Lamberg, the military commander in the state of Chihuahua. The Comanches had agreed to not raid anywhere in the state, but to go on to other Mexican states, such as Durango, Jalisco, Nuevo Leon, and Zacatecas. (As you might imagine, this agreement led to difficulties between the governments of the states.) If the Comanches found any Apaches in Chihuahua, the Chihuahuan government would pay handsomely for their scalps. In exchange, the citizens of Chihuahua would trade with the Comanches, not fight them.
Lamberg had not told Bajo del Sol that he paid Apaches for Comanche scalps, or that he gave the Seminoles, the Seminole Negroes, and the Kickapoos a large land grant near Remolino in exchange for Comanche and Mescalero Apache scalps. Lamberg paid American bountyhunters for scalps, too.
For over two hundred years the isolated towns of Northern Mexico had to make their own “paz partial” (treaties) with the nomadic Comanches and Apaches. The goal of the Spanish (and after 1821) the Mexican government was to absorb the Indians into society. If any Indian made a treaty, they were automatically a citizen of Mexico. If any Indian agreed to live in one place and work in the fields or mines they were given regular rations.
After the end of Spanish rule in 1821, however, the nomadic Indians realized that any soldier posted in the region was ill-trained and poorly paid by the new Mexican government, and as a result were rarely willing to aggressively pursue Indians that came to steal livestock, children, and women. It was not until Emperor Maximilian and his French troops were expelled from Mexico in 1867 under the leadership of Benito Juarez that the Mexican government could afford to defeat the nomadic Indians. Even then it took the wealth of the largest landholder (and governor) of Chihuahua, Luis Terrazas, with his “private army” under the command of his cousin Joaquin, to end Apache raiding in Chihuahua in the 1880s. The Americans had ended the Comanche raids in 1874 by defeating them at Palo Duro.
A pubescent Macario Leal had been captured by the Comanches in 1842. As he grew up he became a valuable warrior and interpreter for the Comanches. In 1854 he was captured by troops from the state of Durango when they decimated a large band of the Southern Comanches in a surprise dawn attack in Canon Espiritu Santo (in the state of Chihuahua). By then Bajo del Sol was dead, killed by Apaches in the Chisos Mountains. Bajo del Sol honored his treaty with Lamberg even when he was confronted by a band of Apaches when he was almost alone. He charged the Apaches singing his death song.
As Leal and the others waited, the rest of the fifty Comanches in town traded in the tiendas and drank in the cantinas. 350 more Comanches were camped not far from town. The residents of San Carlos traded with Comanches and Apaches, outlaws and bountyhunters – anyone with plunder. Several large haciendas along the Rio Conchos were favored trading locales for the Comanches, too, along with the hacienda La Zarca in Durango – that state’s largest landholding.
Although the communities of interior Mexico made their own treaties with the Indians they despised the “nortenos.” Sometimes one community would have a treaty and the next community 30 miles away would not. The citizens of interior Mexixco were often correct in their assumption that the norteno contrabanders reported to the Indians about troop movements and suggested likely target for raids. The nortenos would sometimes even ride with the Comanches as guides. The contrabanders sold the stolen property to wagon trains headed to San Antonio on the Chihuahua trail, or headed to Sante Fe in New Mexico.
Ten minutes after the sun sunk out of sight the trader that Leal and the others were awaiting rode into town. After formal salutations the trader could not contain his most important news. “I found out that don Emilio made a treaty with the Mescalero Apache chief Espejo. The drought is forcing the Apaches to come out of the Sierras to beg for food. My sources tell me he is paying the Apaches for Comanche scalps.” Espejo was hounding wagon trains along the California trail west of Horsehead Crossing during this time, so he managed to stay out of the Comanches’ way rather well.
Not impressed by the news, Bajo del Sol shrugged. “If the Apaches bother us as much as a fly on a horse’s withers, I will visit Chihuahua as our former leaders Santa Anna and Old Owl once did and promise to invade Chihuahua itself with 1000 warriors. Despite the disease that killed them and many others, we can still overpower don Emilio’s worthless soldiers, and he knows it.”
During his life, the late Professor Ralph A. Smith of Abilene Christian College was the leading expert on the Comanche War Trail. This story was developed from an article he published in the Great Plains Journal in 1972 found in the Midland Archaeological Society’s library housed at the Sibley Nature Center. The Comanche War Trail led across the Llano Estacado from Big Spring to Horsehead Crossing.