Buffalo Hump
Buffalo Hump was a War Chief of the Penateka band of the Comanches. He came to prominence after the Council House Fight when he led the Comanches on the Great Raid of 1840.
Early life
Little is known of Buffalo Hump's early life: education in his youth and training as a warrior, together with his cousin Yellow Wolf, went on under their uncle Mukwooru's influence and their cursus honorum was in its full development during the Mexican domination of Texas. Their more northern kinsmen Yamparika, Kotsoteka, Nokoni and Kwahadi warriors, under such leaders as Ten Bears, Tawaquenah, Wulea-boo, Huupi-pahati, Iron Jacket, and their allies the Kiowas, were accustomed to fighting in the Arkansas River country against their Cheyenne, and Arapaho foes, just as the Penatekas did also fight other northern tribes.In 1829 Buffalo Hump and, presumably, Yellow Wolf led their warriors northward to recover a large herd of horses stolen by a Cheyenne party, and the young Penateka braves proved themselves against these northern enemies. The Penateka party came on a Cheyenne village near the Bijou Creek, north of Bent's Corral, and stormed the whole herd of horses, however another Cheyenne party of about 20 warriors, equipped with some rifles, led by the famous Cheyenne chief also called Yellow Wolf stole back the animals; the Comanche party chased the fleeing enemies for a distance, but finally gave up to avoid an ambush. Still in 1829, Buffalo Hump and Yellow Wolf led also a big raid against the Mexican settlements in the Guadalupe Valley, achieving a fame as raiders among the Mexican people, but causing the failure of Mukwooru and Incoroy in their negotiations to reach an agreement with Mexican authorities. In 1835 Buffalo Hump and Yellow Wolf led 300 Comanche warriors in an attack against Parral, in the Sierra Madre Occidental.
In 1838 Buffalo Hump, now an important war chief, placed Yellow Wolf in charge of the Penateka warriors and went with Amorous Man and Old Owl, to Houston, where they met President Sam Houston and signed a treaty with him. In December 1838, Mirabeau Lamar, a partisan of the clash with the Indians and of their expulsion from Texas, succeeded Houston, after which the peace agreement failed and fighting restarted. Buffalo Hump, already made famous by the Council House fight of 1840, became a historically important figure when, flanked by Isaviah and Sanna Anna, he led a group of Comanches, mostly his own Penateka Comanche division plus allies from various other Comanche bands, in the Great Raid of 1840. Their goal was to get revenge on the Texans who had killed at the Council House thirty members of a delegation of Comanche Chiefs when they had been there under a flag of truce for negotiations.
The Council House Fight
The Comanches who arrived at the Council House at San Antonio in the Republic of Texas in March 1840, under Lamar's Presidency, came with the intention to negotiate a peace treaty. They sent a delegation of 65 people, including a dozen chiefs of several bands and several women too, led by Mukwooru and Kwihnai, under a white flag of truce, as they understood ambassadors should do. The Texans had expected the Comanches to bring several white captives as part of the agreement. At the meeting the chiefs explained they had brought in all of the captives their bands had: to-wit one, a girl sixteen years old. The Texans did not understand the chiefs had no power over the other bands to force them to comply with the demands, and so pulled out guns and declared to the Indians they were now their prisoners until the rest of the captives were returned. Now under threat, the Comanches, who were without bows, lances or guns, fought back with their knives. The Texans had concealed heavily armed soldiers just outside the Council House and at the onset of the fighting the windows and doors were opened and the soldiers outside shot into the room at the Comanche ambassadors and their people. Thirty-five Comanches were slain, 29 were captured, and seven Texans were killed. Mukwooru's widow was sent back to her people to warn them that unless all the white prisoners kept by the Comanches were relinquished, the Comanche prisoners at San Antonio would be killed. This massacre resulted in lasting bitterness among the Comanche people. Isimanica led a party 300 warriors strong to the outskirts of San Antonio, challenging the Texas militia barracked in San Josè Mission, to come out and fight, but the Texans didn't accept his challenge. After this, Piava, a minor chief, brought to San Antonio three white prisoners, but probably the Comanches killed the other captives.Pahayuca and Mupitsukupʉ became the Penateka principal chiefs, and Buffalo Hump became the principal war chief, with Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna as his lieutenants and partners.
The Great Raid of 1840
Buffalo Hump was determined to do more than merely complain about what the Comanches viewed as a bitter betrayal; in the summer he called a council, spreading word to the other bands of Comanches that he, Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna were going for a great raid against the white settlements in Texas as a revenge; in the meanwhile, Buffalo Hump, Yellow Wolf, Santa Anna and Isimanica, with 400 warriors, were raiding the settlements between Bastrop and San Antonio, exhausting the Rangers and Militia's detachments. When they were ready, in late July 1840, Buffalo Hump, along with Yellow Wolf, Santa Anna and likely Isimanica, led the Penateka warriors in the Great Raid, and old Mupitsukupʉ too joined the biggest war party. According to the Comanche tradition, all the principal Comanche chiefs took part in the Great Raid: if so, also Ten Bears, Tawaquenah, Wulea-boo, Huupi-pahati, Iron Jacket, and possibly their allies the Kiowa, like Dohasan and Satank, could have had a role. On this raid the Comanches went all the way from the plains of west Texas to the cities of Victoria and Linnville on the Texas coast. Linnville was the second largest port in Texas at that time. In what may have been the largest organized raid by the Comanches to that point, they raided, burned, and plundered these towns. The Comanches killed a large number of slaves and captured more than 1,500 horses.The Battle of Plum Creek
On the way back from the sea, the Comanches easily defeated three different Militia detachments under John Jackson Tumlinson Jr., Adam Zumwalt and Ben McCulloch near the Garcitas Creek; then, they overwhelmed another Militia company led by Lafayette Ward, James Bird and Matthew Caldwell along the trail to the San Marcos River; finally, they were attacked by Texas Rangers, and militia, rallied under gen. Felix Huston, at the Battle of Plum Creek near Lockhart. This was later portrayed as a great Texan victory, but that is highly questionable: volunteers from Gonzales and from Bastrop had gathered to attempt to stop the war party and all the Ranger companies of east and central Texas, equipped with the new Colt Paterson revolvers, moved to intercept the Indians. They met at Plum Creek, near the town of Lockhart, on August 12, 1840; 80 Comanches were reported killed in the ensuing gun battle – unusually heavy casualties for the Comanches and their allies – but they got away with the bulk of their plunder and stolen horses,. The “defeated” Comanches seem to have viewed this fight as a great victory which did much to enhance the various chiefs’ prestige; if so it is unlikely that they suffered high casualties. The fact that the raiding party managed to escape with the majority of the stolen horses and most of their plunder casts doubt upon the Texans' version of events.Texas and the Penateka Comanche treaty negotiations
Despite the Council House massacre and the subsequent Great Raid of 1840, Sam Houston, once again the President of the Texas Republic following the Lamar Presidency, and Buffalo Hump with other chiefs succeeded, in August 1843, in agreeing to a temporary treaty accord and a ceasefire between the Comanches, their allies, and the Texans. In October, the Comanches, hopeful of permanently establishing official Comancheria borders, agreed to meet with Houston and try to negotiate a treaty similar to the one just concluded at Fort Bird: the peace chiefs Pahayuca and Mupitsukupʉ, and others, representing, for the first time, every major division of the Comanche in Texas and their Kiowa and Kataka allies were asked to free their white prisoners. In early 1844, Buffalo Hump and other Comanche leaders signed the treaty at Tehuacana Creek in which they agreed to return white captives in toto, and to cease raiding Texan settlements. In exchange for this, the Texans would cease military action against the Comanches, establish more trading posts, and recognize the boundary between Texas and Comanchería. Comanche allies, including the Wacos, Taweashes, Tawakonis, Kanoatinos, Keechis, belonging to the Wichita confederation, the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache, also agreed to join in the treaty. Unfortunately, the boundary provision was deleted by the Texas Senate in ratifying the final version. This caused Buffalo Hump to agree with Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna's suspicions of the Texans motives, changing his stance to align himself with his cousin and the third war chief, and repudiate the treaty, and hostilities soon resumed.In May 1846, following the annexation of Texas to the United States, Buffalo Hump led the Comanche delegation to treaty talks at Council Springs and signed a peace treaty with the United States,. Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna, aware they were no longer strong enough to oppose the US, or stop the ceaseless and massive flow of the immigrants, were with him. Buffalo Hump, nevertheless, declined an invitation to go to Washington and meet President James Polk, instead joining Isaviah in a great raiding party going to Mexico. In early 1847 some Penateka chiefs met the Indian agent Robert S. Neighbors, Johann O. von Meusebach and the German immigrants united in the “Adelsverein” in the San Saba River council, and authorized them to settle Fredicksburg, in the grant the Germans had bought between the Llano and the Guadalupe rivers. In May 1847 Pahayuca, Mupitsukupʉ, Buffalo Hump and Santa Anna again met Neighbors and learned that the U.S. Senate had suppressed the article of Council Springs treaty which forbade settlers from encroaching into the Comancheria. Santa Anna claimed the right to raid into Mexico and as the United States was then at war with Mexico, Neighbors didn't raise any objections, so that summer Buffalo Hump, Yellow Wolf, and Santa Anna led some hundreds warriors into Coahuila and Chihuahua, burning villages, stealing horses and kidnapping women and children all the way to San Francisco del Oro. On the way back the Comanches were engaged by U.S. dragoons near Parras, losing part of their booty. In August Yellow Wolf, Buffalo Hump, and Santa Anna were in Mexico once again, leading 800 warriors.
As war chief of the Penateka Comanche, Buffalo Hump, and Yellow Wolf too, dealt peacefully with American officials throughout the late 1840s and 1850s.
In 1849, Buffalo Hump escorted Robert S. Neighbors and John S. “Rip” Ford's expedition along the first part of the trail from San Antonio to El Paso, as far as the Nokoni villages, Yellow Wolf and Shanaco joining him; at the Nokoni villages Buffalo Hump and Yellow Wolf entrusted their proteges to their old friend Huupi-pahati, the Nokoni chief, who brought the whites to their destination. In 1851 Yellow Wolf and Buffalo Hump once again led their warriors in a great raid into Mexico, raiding the states of Chihuahua and Durango.