MOONET] FORT AT ADOBE WALLS ESTABLISHED l;i9 



THE OUTBREAK OF 187J-75 



CAUSES OF THE DISSENSION 



But events were steadily drifting toward war again and the truce 

 was of brief duration, tbe unrest culminating in the general revolt com- 

 monly known as the outbreak of 1874. As this was the last, and will 

 forever remain the last, combination of the southern plains tribes 

 against the power of the wliite man, resulting in their complete and 

 final subjection, it merits somewhat detailed attention. 



In late raids into Texas several of the Comanche had been killed by 

 the hated Tonkawa, a small cannibal tribe, in their capacity of gov- 

 ernment scouts (see the calendar, 1873-74). The wailing laments of 

 the Comanche women for their dead, and their appeals for vengeance, 

 urged the warriors to go down once more into Texas and exterminate 

 the remnants of the man-eaters who had escaped the massacre of twelve 

 years before. To add to their discontent, a lawless band of hunters 

 organized in Dodge City, Kansas, had, in the spring of 1873, estab- 

 lished an adobe fort, known as the "Adobe Walls,'' on the South Cana- 

 dian, in the panhandle of Texas, from which headquarters they were 

 making inroads on the guaranteed hunting grounds of the Indians and 

 were slaughtering the buffalo by thousands, in defiance of the govern- 

 ment promises that such intrusion would be prevented. It was also 

 chai'ged that they directly incited disorder by selling whisky, arms, 

 and amnuinition to the Indians in return for stolen stock. In his offi- 

 cial report on the outbreak. General Poi)e states emphatically that the 

 unlawful intrusion and criminal conduct of the e white hunters were 

 the principal cause of the war ( War, 1). This is confirmed by the tes- 

 timony of white men employed at the Cheyenne agency at the time, 

 who stated to the author that just before going out the Cheyenne 

 chiefs rode down and assured them that they need have no fear, as the 

 Indians considered them as friends and would not molest them, but 

 were compelled to tight the buffalo hunters, who were destroying their 

 means of subsistence. "Then they shook hands with us and rode otf 

 and began killing ])eople." 



Shoitly before this tlie sou and nephew of Lone-wolf, tbe principal 

 chief of the Kiowa, had been killed in Mexico. He went down with a 

 party in the summer of 1874 an<l buried their bodies, making a solemn 

 vow at the same time to kill a white man in retaliation, and thus com- 

 municating to his people the bitterness which he felt himself (sec the 

 calendar, 1873-74). Lone-wolf is described by Battey about this time 

 as being several years older than Kicking bird, not so far seeing, more 

 hasty and rash in his conclusions, as well as more treacherous and cun- 

 ning, but with less depth of mind. He was the acknowledged leader 

 of the M'ar element in the tribe. 



While lawless white men were thus destroying the buffalo, the Indi- 

 ans themselves were suffering for food. The agent for the Cheyenne 



