Mow-way


Mow-way or Moway also referred to by European settlers as Shaking Hand or Hand Shaker, was the principal leader and war chief of the Kotsoteka band of the Comanche during the 1860s and 1870s, following the deaths of Kuhtsu-tiesuat in 1864 and Tasacowadi in 1872.

Raiding in Mexico

In 1849-1850 a band of Kotsotekas, led by Tabe-tipu and her son Tabe-tuhka, with his own son Mow-way raided Chihuahua State; the Chihuahuan Government set a bounty of 200 pesos on each Indian scalp claiming an "extermination war" against them. In 1851 they made an agreement with the Kotsotekas, for their aid in taking Apache scalps. In 1851 Kotsotekas, having returned to the security at their rear, spread through Coahuila and Durango states and the bordering areas of Sonora and Sinaloa without hunting Apaches. Tabe-tuhka returned to Chihuahua leading 400 warriors, and Mow-way brought thousands of horses and cattle to Texas. In 1852 the Chihuahuan Kotsotekas gained 18,000 Pesos for Apache scalps, but in July Tabe-tuhka's Kotsotekas clashed with Mexican cavalry south of Durango, and, soon after this, Tabe-tuhka was killed by the Apache, and Mow-way became the leader.

Fighting the Long Knives

Mow-way signed the Fort Cobb treaty in 1861. Several Comanche leaders met General Albert Pike and signed an allegiance with the Confederation. He signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty in October 1867.
On November 27, 1868, General Philip H. Sheridan's winter campaign led to the Washita Massacre. Lt. Col. George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked and destroyed Motavato 's village, a Southern Cheyenne encampment on the Washita River in Oklahoma. The Kotsoteka and Big Red Meat's Nokoni band immediately intervened to help the Cheyenne. They fought and wiped out Major Joel Elliott's 7th U.S. Cavalry troop of 20 men. Andrew W. Evans' Canadian River campaigns between November - December 1868 against Kwahadi, Kotsoteka and Nokoni Comanche villages, forced Big Red Meat and Tahka's Nokoni, Mow-way's Kotsoteka, Pawʉʉra-ocoom's Kwahadi to surrender. In January 1869, Mow-way surrendered to Col. Benjamin Grierson. Grierson turned Mow-way over to Lawrie Tatum, the new Quaker agent at Fort Sill. Mow-way and the Kotsoteka soon left Fort Sill to rejoin their Kwahadi allies on the Staked Plains.
After May 1871, Mow-way and his band were associated with the hostile Kwahadi band, perhaps due to his associations among the Nokoni with old Horseback, as well as Peta Nocona, Pawʉʉra-ocoom, Kobay-o-burra, Kobay-o-toho and Peta Nocona's son, Quanah Parker.

Red River attack

Colonel Ranald Mackenzie's troops attacked Mow-way's village near the North Fork of the Red River in Gray County, Texas, on September 28, 1872. That day: the 4th U.S. Cavalry under Mackenzie, attacked the Kotsotekas at Mow-way's village near McClellan Creek, while under subchief Kai-Wotche's leadership. The "battle" was an unanticipated assault on the village with the easy killing of 23 men, women, and children and the capture of between 120 -130 women and children and more than 1.000 horses. The Army had managed to catch the camp by surprise, and most of the village's inhabitants were captured. The Kwahadi warriors led by Pawʉʉra-ocoom, Kobay-oburra and Quanah Parker run from their encampments nearby and induced the soldiers to quickly retreat.
On the day after the attack, on September 29, the Kotsoteka and Kwahadi warriors attacked the military encampment and retrieved the horses, but not the women and children. The Comanche prisoners, 120-130 women and children, were kept under guard and were transferred to Fort Concho, where they were imprisoned throughout the winter.
Mackenzie used the captives as a bargaining tool to force the off-reservation Indians back to the reservation and to force the Indians to free white captives.
After the Red River battle. Mow-way and Pawʉʉra-ocoom moved their bands to the vicinity of the Wichita Agency. The Nokoni peaceful chief, Horseback, who had family members among the prisoners, persuaded the Comanches to trade stolen livestock and white captives in exchange for the captured women and children. Mow-way placed his camp near the agency and remained there until the release of the captives.

Adobe Walls. Attack against buffalo hunters/Long Knives

Together with Quanah Parker, Kobay-oburra as Kwahadi war chiefs Isa-rosa, Tabananika, Tuwikaa-tiesuat and Isananica as Yamparika leaders, Big Red-meat as the Nokoni militant chief, also Mow-way and his Kotsoteka band took part in the attack against the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874. The Indians were overpowered due to the opponents' high powered rifles and skilled marksmen. After the attack, Mow-way and the Kotsotekas hid in the Palo Duro Canyon, with their Kwahadi and Nokoni kinsmen and their Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne allies. Mackenzie's scouts discovered the hostile Comanche, Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne encampments in Palo Duro Canyon and attacked them on September 27, 1874. The Red River War ensued, It ended in 1875 with the surrender of Mow-way and his fellow warriors at Fort Sill on April 28, 1875.

Death of Mow-way

Mow-way died of pneumonia in 1886.
A portrait of Mow-way is included in the J. Paul Getty Museum.