Comanche Archives - Not Even Past

Fredericksburg, TX in 1896. The photograph shows the 50th Anniversary parade celebrating the 1846 founding of the town, with the Vereinskirche in the background (via Wikimedia)

Fredericksburg is a small town in central Texas. Known for its wineries, beer halls, and its World War II museum, it is now often overshadowed by the urban hubs of San Antonio and Austin, both within a two-hour drive of town. Yet, in 1847 Fredericksburg was a point of serious contention for Texans, Germans, Americans, and the Comanche, marking the edge of many clashing frontiers. Fredericksburg was situated precariously on the border of the Comanche Nation, the Mexican-American War was in full swing, and the Comanche were the most powerful military force on the plains. The German Emigration Company (the founders of Fredericksburg) owned rights promised by the former Republic of Texas to lands starting on the north bank of the Llano river. At the same time, unfortunately, the United States guaranteed the Comanche that they would not spread north of the same river. As a result, come the beginning of 1847, the small town of Fredericksburg found itself at the center of an international crisis. German immigrants and businessmen, the Comanche, U.S. Indian agents, and Delaware Indian guides all walked a delicate line, trying to gain from the Comanche-German conflict while avoiding a Comanche-American conflict that risked pushing the Comanche into an alliance with Mexico. Simply put, the stakes were high. A Comanche-Mexican alliance could have ended U.S. dreams of a coast to coast empire.

In the end, the potential conflict was avoided. The Penateka Comanche and the German Emigration Company signed the Comanche-Meusebach Treaty in May of 1847. The moment is immortalized in Fredericksburg with the “Lasting Peace” monument, whose plaque claims that it “is the only known peace treaty with Native Americans thought never to have been broken.” The monument’s hero, John O. Meusebach, was an essential figure in the founding of Fredericksburg and in early Texas history, but his grandeur fails to disguise the intuitively outlandish claim that a peace treaty with the Comanche, who are now confined to a reservation over 340 miles away, remains unbroken.

The monument is far from alone in its celebration of Meusebach’s success. Historians, such as T.R. Fehrenbach, in his famous Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans, have celebrated Meusebach ever since naturalist Ferdinand von Roemer published an account of the treaty in 1848. As a rule, we should no longer be shocked by misleading histories and outrageous claims that seek to distance American expansion from theft of lands already controlled by indigenous peoples. Yet, the irony of the plaque is that on further exploration the claim of a lasting peace is, in a sense, true. The treaty, as it is written, was never broken.

“Lasting Peace” - Statue at Peace Garden, commemorating the peace treaty between settler John Meusebach and Chief Santa Anna of the Comanche Indians (via City-Data) — “Lasting Peace” – Statue at Peace Garden, commemorating the peace treaty between settler John Meusebach and Chief Santa Anna of the Comanche Indians (via City-Data)

In the monument, Chief Santa Anna sits cross-legged, receiving a peace pipe from John O. Meusebach who kneels on one knee before him. The peace pipe represents the Treaty, which Meusebach and Santa Anna (along with others) negotiated throughout the spring of 1847. The implications of Meusebach’s motion offering Santa Anna the pipe is essential to understanding how the monument misleads. Meusebach’s movement suggests power through action, while Santa Anna, seated, passively receives the gift of peace from the heroic German settler. A pre-conceived power dynamic in which Europeans dominated cross-cultural and geopolitical interactions is reinforced by the motion. Yet, we now know such power dynamics misrepresent Comanche-European relations. The Comanche held it within their power to offer peace. Bluntly put, the Germans could not mount a meaningful attack on the Comanche while the U.S. government’s fear of conflict and thinly spread army meant American forces were ill-prepared to go to war over Fredericksburg. Meusebach did not bestow peace on the Comanche. Rather, he bought it.

Meusebach’s treaty promised the Comanche $3,000 in gifts along with freedom to camp and trade in Fredericksburg in exchange for the safe passage of Germans to speculate and settle the land from the Llano river north to the San Saba river [1]. As a result, since the Germans lacked the means to force the Comanche out of Fredericksburg in the first place, the peace was kept, because the Comanche, not the Germans, maintained it. Nevertheless, the treaty is puzzling. Only one year before, in a treaty between the Comanche and the United States, the Comanche were promised all land north of the Llano River. They understood that the U.S. government feared their involvement in the war. Meusebach needed Comanche permission to settle the land. How the Comanche understood the treaty is less clear.

In order to tackle why this treaty was signed, we must reimagine the thought processes by which Comanche engaged in treaties and explore their potential motivations. First, the Comanche understood geopolitics in the region. Similarly, the Comanche, along with their Anglo-European counterparts, were sensitive to the specificity of language in treaties. Historians Vine Deloris Jr., Raymond J. DaMallie, and Pekka Hämäläinen remind us that not all treaties represent United States government taking advantage of Indian Nations, and the Comanche were rational, intelligent, and keen political actors who put great value in both real and fictive kinship. Texans at the time were acutely aware of Comanche power and of their political culture. The presence of Delaware Chiefs, a group know continentally as a wise, rational, and trustworthy people were thought of as distant kin by the Comanche. Their advice would have been well received by Comanches of the time. Similarly, the presence of R.S. Neighbors who was famously friends to the Comanche, suggests that the governor of Texas was aware of how the Comanche understood diplomacy, and that they actively catered to it [2].

Treaty of Peace by John O. Meusebach and Colonist with the Comanche Indians, March 2, 1847. Copied from original painting by Mrs. Ernest Marschull, daughter of John O. Meusebach (via Texas State Library and Archive Commission)

Importantly, the Comanche did not forfeit land rights in the treaty. The agreement is not a peace treaty at all. Rather, the Germans agreed to pay tribute to the Comanche for safe usage of Comanche land. Such an arrangement was familiar to the Comanche who often made similar arrangements with other Native Americans, allowing them to hunt in Comancheria in exchange for gifts and trade. There is little reason to think that Comanche approached this scenario in a radically different manner. The treaty is not an example of heroism and bravado on the part of Meusebach, as the monument would have us believe. It is an implicit acceptance of Comanche domination and power. The lack of violence following the treaty, which Fehrenbach correctly determined was proof of an unbroken treaty, was not due to the benevolence of Meusebach, who frankly lacked the military means to break it. Instead, it was a result of Santa Anna’s and the other Comanche war chiefs’ willingness to stick to their word.

Re-examining the treaty shows us how well told stories are sometimes in need of revision. Interpretations of the Meusebach-Comanche Treaty were not inherently incorrect, but they were limited in perspective. Upon seeing the monument, we presume that the Comanche were swindled out of land and that Meusebach bestowed the peace upon the Comanche. The sleepy town in central Texas that we see in 2018 was the center of conflict in 1847. Re-examination reveals the contingent nature of westward expansion and the Mexican-American War, while reinforcing the essential role that indigenous attempts to prosper and thrive played in Anglo-European expansionist policy.

[1] “Meusebach-Comanche Treaty, 1847”, Box 3S191, John O. Meusebach Papers, [ca. 1847-1889], Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

[2] “Assassination of R.S. Neighbors”, September 28, 1859, Box 2E422, Folder 3, Misc., Robert Simpson Neighbors Papers, 1838-1935, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

Additional Reading:

Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (2008)

Vine Deloria, Jr. and Raymond J. DaMallie, Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979 vol. 1 (1999)

John P. Bowes, Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal (2016)

Also by Jesse Ritner on Not Even Past:

The Curious History of Lincoln’s Birth Cabin

You may also like:

Justin Heath reviews Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands by Juliana Barr
The Curious Life of General Jackson’s Horses Hair by Josh Urich
“The Die is Cast”: Early Texans face the Comanches

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

This article is part of an occasional series of articles highlighting the fascinating collection of historical documents in the Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin.

by Nathan Jennings

The Telegraph and Texas Register was the most influential newspaper in the region between colonial settlement and the Civil War. Based in Houston and intended for popular consumption, the nationalistic editorials in this publication offer a window into how the newly formed Lone Star Republic viewed the challenges of rapid territorial expansion into contested territories along the lower Great Plains.

One editorial in the Telegraph, published on November 3, 1838, provides a particularly revealing view of the new republic’s reaction to increased conflict with the Penateka Comanche people. This specific time in Texas’s history represented a transitional stage between the Texas Revolution of 1836 and the Anglo-Indian Wars that exploded across the plains between 1839 and 1841. Though the Anglo-American colonies of Mexican Tejas had frequently grappled with smaller tribes east of the Colorado River, they had yet to decisively engage the massed cavalries of the Plains Indians. The Telegraph article by Francis Moore was written in response to a recent Comanche victory over a group of settlers, and focused on the confrontation emerging in the San Antonio region.

Page from the Telegraph and Texas Register newspaper from Nov. 3, 1828

Moore’s editorial sheds light on three ways Anglo-Texans perceived the Comanche and the threat of their power. First, the article emphatically stated that “war with this tribe has become inevitable” and called for mobilization by the Texas government. This enthusiasm for large-scale warfare represents a transition from the Texans’ historical reliance on localized militia to a society- wide engagement with national armies. Second, the editor admits the culpability of “rash men” who have “aided in plunging the whole country into a murderous conflict” in order to seize western property, but then fatalistically disregards this causality, shifting blame onto the Native population: “The die is cast — the tomahawk is uplifted, and the hundreds of helpless mothers and children call aloud for protection.”

The third point reveals a tactical shift in ideas about defeating the Native American warriors. Moore suggested that the republic launch the offense with an “expedition” of “mounted men” to “penetrate into the very heart of the Comanche country.” This shows that by 1838, Anglo-Texans had fully embraced the cavalry culture of the region. They also apparently understood that their own defensive strategies were insufficient against arguably the most lethal raiders in North America, who were defending their territory against European settlers who were seizing and occupying it.

The editorial’s prescriptions –to mobilize the army and population for a large-scale, cavalry war — would soon become tragic reality. Over the next three years the Texan and Comanche peoples clashed in an unprecedented scope of ethnic warfare to decide the fate of West Texas. While both peoples launched massive and destructive invasions into each other’s heartlands, the Anglo-American sustained use of expeditionary methodology suggested by the Telegraph proved decisive. By 1845 Texas broke the power of the southern Comanche for a generation and the Lone Star Republic solidified its control of the territories between the Red River and the Rio Grande.

The full text:

We trust this mournful event will serve to convince those who are entrusted with the reins of government, that a war with this tribe has become inevitable. Further apathy on the part of the Executive will be regarded, by the suffering citizens of the west, as criminal in the extreme. It is useless now to waste time in idle speculation, relative to the causes of the war, and to declaim against those rash men who have aided in plunging the whole country into a murderous conflict in order that they might secure a few square leagues of land. Whether they or their savage opponents are most to blame, is no longer of importance. The die is cast-the tomahawk is uplifted, and the hundreds of helpless mothers and children call aloud for protection. We trust they will not call in vain. We look to the executive with confidence for one last, prompt, decisive and energetic effort, that shall arouse the slumbering energies of a gallant people, and display to the is miserable, cowardly, unarmed tribe of cannibals, the true character of that nation the affect to despise, and so foolishly threaten to exterminate. The present is a most opportune season to carry on an expedition into the Comanche country-the Buffalo are returning from the north-the air is mild and bracing, and the mesquite grass offers an inexhaustible supply of pasturage. The Mexicans, who have undoubtedly instigated them to this measure, can afford no and, as they are compelled to concentrate all their disposable force on Vera Cruz and the sea coast, to prevent the expected attack of the French. A small figure of mounted men could, therefore, at this time, easily penetrate into the very heart of the Comanche country, and extort from them a peace that would be proof against Indian treachery.

More amazing finds at the Briscoe Center:

Standard Oil writes a “history” of the old south

And Stephen F. Austin visits a New Orleans bookstore

Paying for Peace: Reflections on the “Lasting Peace” Monument

“The Die is Cast”: Early Texans Face the Comanches

Recent Posts