Indian Management

“From the memoirs of a soldier who guarded the pacified…”

At Ft. Sill the Indians we guarded on the extensive reservation were the Comanches and the Kioways. They numbered several thousands. Of the Koways the enteir tribe had been pacified. Of the Comanches all were present except a few of the Cohardie [Quohadi] Commanches, still hostile. Their camp was said to be somewhere out on the Staked Plains or Llano Estacado. The Cohardie Commanches, the scourge of Texas and the Southwest, were in 1874 attacked by Mackenzie with the 4th Cavalry, at their camp in the Paladuro Canyon of the Staked Plains. Twelve hundred Indian ponies were captured and shot to prevent their recapture. Most of the Indians then surrendered…

They received from the Government an allowance of clothing, rations, etc. These supplies were issue to them by the Indian agent, who was an Interior Department official and not under the control of the War Deparmrnet. The beef was issued on the hoof, and slaughtered by the Indians. The Indians eked out the food thus supplied by gathering and storing berries, wild plums, roots, etc. In summer they were permitted to go under escort of soldiers to the buffalo country, some forty to a hundred miles west of Fort Sill, where they killed great numbers of buffalo, drying the meat. The skins they sold to the Indian trader, who paid from five to ten dollars apiece for them, according to quality.

Gen. James Parker
The Old Army
Memoirs 1872-1918