The Council House Fight was an ambush of Comanche leaders by Republic of Texas officials. The ambush took place on March 13, 1840, after the Comanche chiefs and their followers and families had come into San Antonio under a flag of truce supposedly to negotiate a peace treaty.^[1] For other uses, see Comanche (disambiguation). ... Capital Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, Columbia (1836) Houston (1837–1839) Austin (1839–1845) Language(s) English (de facto) Spanish, French, German and Native American languages regionally Government Republic President1  - 1836-1838 Sam Houston  - 1838-1841 Mirabeau B. Lamar  - 1841-1844 Sam Houston  - 1844-1845 Anson Jones Vice... March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Nickname: Location in the state of Texas Coordinates: Counties Bexar County Government  - Mayor Phil Hardberger Area  - City  412. ...

Background

By 1840, a number of the Comanche had become convinced that the white settlers could not be driven from their homes, as the Comanche had managed to do with the Apaches. In the spring of 1840, thirty-three Comanche Chiefs responded to an offer to meet with the leaders of the Republic of Texas at San Antonio and talk peace. Other chiefs, such as Buffalo Hump warned that the whites could not be trusted. The chiefs who came in to talk and negotiate a peace treaty ended up ambushed with most killed outright in what became known as the Council House Fight.^[2] The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... Buffalo hump is a lump of fat on the back of the neck. ...

The treaty talks were supposedly to be held at the Council House in San Antonio. However, the Texans hid a large number of heavily armed militiamen and rangers hidden outside the Council House, with orders to fire in if the doors and windows were thrown open.^[3] The Comanche Chiefs, who believed they were negotiating in good faith, had come in without their lances, axes, bows, and firearms as they understood ambassadors should be unarmed. All they were carrying in the way of weapons were belt knives.^[2]

The Council House Fight

The Texan officials began the treaty talks with demands that the Comanche considered absolutely impossible, including that the Comanche return all white prisoners. This included people such as Cynthia Ann Parker, who were with bands of the Comanche not represented at the talks. The Texans certainly knew that many of the captives were in the hands of bands not represented at the talks, and thus that these captives would not be able to be returned.^[3] The Comanche chiefs at the meeting had brought in one white captive to show good faith, Matilda Lockhart, a 16-year-old girl who had been held prisoner for a year and a half, along with several Mexican children who had been captured separately. According to Mary Maverick, who helped care for the girl, her nose had been entirely burned away[1], enraging the Texan leadership. The Comanche chiefs said that they had others available for return. When they would not, or could not, return all captives immediately, the Texas officials said that chiefs would be held hostage until the white captives were released.^[4] The Comanche attempted to escape, and militia in hiding threw open the doors, and began firing in at the astonished Comanches. Fighting back with only their knives, the Comanches were killed outright or taken prisoner.^[5] Cynthia Ann Parker, or Naduah (also sometimes spelled Nadua and Nauta), was an Anglo-Texas woman of Scotch-Irish descent who suffered being kidnapped twice in her lifetime - once from her natural family at the age of nine by a Native American raiding party, and once from her Indian family...

The aftermath

Main article Great Raid of 1840.

Main article Battle of Plum Creek.

The twelve bands of Comanche had been raiding settlements of the Mexicans, Spanish, and Texas Settlers for hundreds of years. They made a regular business of selling captives back, and the Texans could have gotten most of the captives back had they negotiated in good faith. Instead, by the tricks at the Council House, they guaranteed that the captives would not be recovered.^[5]

The war chief Buffalo Hump was determined to exact revenge. The result of the Council House fight was at least 25 settlers killed in the Great Raid, with others taken prisoners, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of goods taken, and one city burned to the ground and another damaged. Instead of the peace which was possible in 1840, it was another three decades before the last of the Comanche came in, without countless settlers and Native Americans killed that could have been avoided. [2] The result of the Council House fight was decades of bloodshed on both sides.^[1] Buffalo hump is a lump of fat on the back of the neck. ...

See also

• Great Raid of 1840
• Battle of Plum Creek

Notes

References:

Online sources:

• Article about Council House Fight from Texas Handbook Online.

• Article about Linville Raid from Texas Handbook Online.

• Dawn Donalson, Buffalo Hump.

• Texas Indians and the Council House Fight.

Bibliography

• Bial, Raymond. Lifeways: The Comanche. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000.
• Brice, Donaly E. The Great Comanche Raid: Boldest Indian Attack on the Texas Republic McGowan Book Co. 1987
• "Comanche" Skyhawks Native American Dedication (August 15, 2005)
• "Comanche" on the History Channel (August 26, 2005)
• Dunnegan, Ted. Ted's Arrowheads and Artifacts from the Comancheria (August 19, 2005)
• Fehrenbach, Theodore Reed The Comanches: The Destruction of a People. New York: Knopf, 1974, ISBN 0394488563. Later (2003) republished under the title The Comanches: The History of a People
• Foster, Morris. Being Comanche.
• Frazier, Ian. Great Plains. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989.
• John, Elizabeth and A.H. Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of the Indian, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540–1795. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1975.
• Jones, David E. Sanapia: Comanche Medicine Woman. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.
• Lodge, Sally. Native American People: The Comanche. Vero Beach, Florida 32964: Rourke Publications, Inc., 1992.
• Lund, Bill. Native Peoples: The Comanche Indians. Mankato, Minnesota: Bridgestone Books, 1997.
• Mooney, Martin. The Junior Library of American Indians: The Comanche Indians. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1993.
• Native Americans: Comanche (August 13, 2005).
• Richardson, Rupert N. The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1933.
• Rollings, Willard. Indians of North America: The Comanche. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.
• Secoy, Frank. Changing Miliitary Patterns on the Great Plains. Monograph of the American Ethnoligical Society, No. 21. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1953.
• Streissguth, Thomas. Indigenous Peoples of North America: The Comanche. San Diego: Lucent Books Incorporation, 2000.
• "The Texas Comanches" on Texas Indians (August 14, 2005).
• Wallace, Ernest, and E. Adamson Hoebel. The Comanches: Lords of the Southern Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952.