Post by ouroboros on Oct 16, 2020 3:05:41 GMT -5
This is my favourite topic and I have gathered many infos on the relations between Comanches and Mescaleros. Harry W.Basehart, Mescalero Apache subsistence patterns and socio-political organization, pp. 124-6 argued against the thesis that Comanches expelled the Mescaleros from the plains
The nature of the relationships between Comanche and Mescalero is significant particularly for its bearing on Mescalero utilization of the bison range. It has sometimes been assumed that the southward expansion of the Comanche resulted in such heavy manpower losses to the Mescalero that the latter were effectively barred from further exploitation of the Plains area. In fact, there is no clear evidence, historical or ethnographic, demonstrating that the Mescalero were denied access to the bison hunting grounds. In this connection, it should be remembered that Mescalero economy was not geared exclusively to the bison hunt, as was the case with many Plains tribes; the products of the bison provided an extra margin of security, rather than the basis of subsistence. Historical records indicate that Mescalero, or Mescalero-affiliated groups, did indeed suffer heavily at the hands of the Comanche on occasion. Thus, it was reported to Don Hugo Oconor that the Comanche killed 300 Mescalero fleeing from Spanish attacks in the Sacramento and White mountains in 1776. While the report may have exaggerated the number of casualties, the New Mexico Mescalero appear to have been at peace with the Spanish during the next two decades. By 1796, however, Cordero remarked that the “Faraones” were “still quite numerous,” whereas the group he termed “Mescalero” had “suffered much from the Comanche, their most bitter enemies” and was composed of only a small number of families. The “Llaneros,” on the other hand, according to Cordero: “check the Comanches in the continual fights and bloody actions which frequently occur, especially in the season of the buffalo hunts.” The “Lipanes” likewise were said to engage in bitter conflict with Comanche “for the proprietorship of the buffalo”. Nonetheless, Comanche utilization of the Staked Plains appears to have been late in time, associated with activities of the “Kwahadi” band in the nineteenth century. Conflicts between Apachean groups and Comanche in the eighteenth century seem to have centered on the eastern and southern margins of the nineteenth-century Mescalero range.
For the period of American contact, ethnographic and historical information is consistent in suggesting that Mescalero-Comanche relations involved alternations between occasional enmity and close cooperation. Informants recount stories of raids into the mountains by small Comanche war parties, and tell with pride of the stunning defeat of the latter at ma?dził. Although some informants viewed the Comanche with considerable ambivalence, most were content to stress the close relationship in evidence during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Rumors of peace between the two tribes reached American officials on several occasions; in 1854 it was claimed that Mescalero and Comanche were to meet at the Bosque Redondo to ratify a treaty entered into the preceding year; while Steck, five years later, heard that the “Agua Nueva” and Marcus and Espejo, leaders in the “Norte” region, had made peace with the Comanche. His information indicated that “some of the Apaches have been with the Comanches all summer in the Buffalo region”. Following the Mescalero departure from Fort Summer frequent reports locate various groups among the Comanche; as late as 1876 Col. Hatch learned that the “Plato” (Platta) band, which had lived for years with the Comanche, desired to return to Fort Stanton, but were afraid to do so without military protection. Increased pressure on both tribes from a number of sources after United States control, including an influx of pioneers and the military, fostered the burial of old animosities and the development of solidary ties against the common enemy. In the latter portion of the nineteenth century, Mescalero and Comanche often combined to exploit the resources of the Plains; moreover, there is no evidence that the latter had restricted Mescalero bison hunting seriously earlier in the century.
