Okla-homey
6/27/2008, 06:31 AM
June 27, 1874: Buffalo hunters and Indians clash at Adobe Walls
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9976/quaadobewalls3wg5.gif
134 years ago today, using new high-powered rifles to devastating effect, a rag-tag group of 28 including buffalo hunters, skinners, barkeepers and merchants repulsed a much larger force of attacking Indians at an old trading post in the Texas panhandle called Adobe Walls -- about 80 miles northeast of Amarillo.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7782/quacanadianborgeradobewxw6.jpg
The Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne Indians living in west Texas had long resented the advancement of white settlement in their territories. In 1867, some of the Indians accepted the terms of the Treaty of Medicine Lodge, which required them to move to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) but also reserved much of the Texas Panhandle as their exclusive hunting grounds.
Many white Texans, however, maintained that the treaty had ignored their legitimate claims to the area. These white buffalo hunters, who had already greatly reduced the once massive herds, continued to hunt in the territory.
By the early 1870s, Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne hunters were finding it harder to locate buffalo, and they blamed the illegal white buffalo hunters. When the federal government failed to take adequate measures to stop the white buffalo hunters, the great Comanche chief Quanah Parker and others began to argue for war.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7383/quannahin2.gif
Quanah Parker. The great chief eventually made peace and lived out his days with his six wives in a fine two-story home north of Lawton on the Comanche reservation.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7329/lonewolfsz5.jpg
Kiowa chief Lone Wolf
In the spring 1874, a group of white merchants occupied an old trading post called Adobe Walls near the South Canadian River in the Indian's hunting territory. The merchants quickly transformed the site into a regional center for the buffalo-hide trade.
Angered by this blatant violation of the treaty, Chief Quanah Parkerand Lone Wolf amassed a combined force of about 700 Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. On this day in 1874, the Indians attacked Adobe Walls.
Those present at Adobe Walls that day included James Hanrahan(the saloon owner), a twenty year old by the name of Bat Masterson, and a buffalo hunter named Billy Dixon. The only woman present was the wife of cook William Olds.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1504/quawyattearpbatmastersogp1.jpg
Deputies Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp in Dodge City, in 1876 -- two years after the Adobe Walls fight. Fun fact: Masterson was the great grandfather of marine scientist Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985
Around 2 a.m., the lodge pole, holding up the sod roof of the saloon gave way with a loud crack. The men in the saloon as well as the other inhabitants immediately set about repairing the damage. It was this act of Providence that caused the inhabitants of Adobe Walls to be wide awake when the dawn attack began.
Only 28 hunters and traders occupied Adobe Walls, but they had two advantages over the Indians: the thick walls of the adobe structure were impenetrable to arrows and bullets, and the occupants had a number of high-powered rifles normally used on buffalo. The hunters breechloading .50 caliber Sharps rifles represented the latest technology in long-range, rapid firing weaponry (movie buffs may recall the rifle sported by a character called Matthew Quigley in Quigley Down Under which was based on these rifles).
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4481/pedersoliquigley563ho3.jpg
Already skilled marksmen, the buffalo hunters used the rifles to deadly effect, decimating the warriors before they came close enough even to return effective fire. On the second day of the siege, one hunter named Billy Dixon reportedly hit a Comanche at a distance of nine-tenths of a mile.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6909/quabillydixonbj8.gif
Billy Dixon. Two weeks later, a team of US Army surveyors would determine the distance of Dixon’s famed shot to be 1,538 yards, or nine-tenths of a mile. Billy Dixon later gave up buffalo hunting and became a scout for the US Army. As a scout at the “Buffalo Wallow Fight” Dixon would earn the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1893, he retired and built a home on the Adobe Walls site. He died there on March 9, 1913 at the age of 63.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2949/quaadobewallsrh2.jpg
Despite their overwhelmingly superior numbers, after three days the Indians concluded that Adobe Walls could not be taken and withdrew. The defenders had lost only four men in the attack, and they later estimated that the Indians had lost 13.
Enraged by their defeat, several Indian bands subsequently took their revenge on poorly defended targets in the form of remote homesteads. Fearful settlers demanded military protection, leading to the outbreak of the Red River War. By the time the war ended in 1875, the Comanche and Kiowa had been defeated and removed to their reservations in Oklahoma and Indian resistance on the Southern Plains had effectively collapsed.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2557/okterritoryla5.png
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9976/quaadobewalls3wg5.gif
134 years ago today, using new high-powered rifles to devastating effect, a rag-tag group of 28 including buffalo hunters, skinners, barkeepers and merchants repulsed a much larger force of attacking Indians at an old trading post in the Texas panhandle called Adobe Walls -- about 80 miles northeast of Amarillo.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7782/quacanadianborgeradobewxw6.jpg
The Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne Indians living in west Texas had long resented the advancement of white settlement in their territories. In 1867, some of the Indians accepted the terms of the Treaty of Medicine Lodge, which required them to move to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) but also reserved much of the Texas Panhandle as their exclusive hunting grounds.
Many white Texans, however, maintained that the treaty had ignored their legitimate claims to the area. These white buffalo hunters, who had already greatly reduced the once massive herds, continued to hunt in the territory.
By the early 1870s, Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne hunters were finding it harder to locate buffalo, and they blamed the illegal white buffalo hunters. When the federal government failed to take adequate measures to stop the white buffalo hunters, the great Comanche chief Quanah Parker and others began to argue for war.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7383/quannahin2.gif
Quanah Parker. The great chief eventually made peace and lived out his days with his six wives in a fine two-story home north of Lawton on the Comanche reservation.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7329/lonewolfsz5.jpg
Kiowa chief Lone Wolf
In the spring 1874, a group of white merchants occupied an old trading post called Adobe Walls near the South Canadian River in the Indian's hunting territory. The merchants quickly transformed the site into a regional center for the buffalo-hide trade.
Angered by this blatant violation of the treaty, Chief Quanah Parkerand Lone Wolf amassed a combined force of about 700 Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. On this day in 1874, the Indians attacked Adobe Walls.
Those present at Adobe Walls that day included James Hanrahan(the saloon owner), a twenty year old by the name of Bat Masterson, and a buffalo hunter named Billy Dixon. The only woman present was the wife of cook William Olds.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1504/quawyattearpbatmastersogp1.jpg
Deputies Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp in Dodge City, in 1876 -- two years after the Adobe Walls fight. Fun fact: Masterson was the great grandfather of marine scientist Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985
Around 2 a.m., the lodge pole, holding up the sod roof of the saloon gave way with a loud crack. The men in the saloon as well as the other inhabitants immediately set about repairing the damage. It was this act of Providence that caused the inhabitants of Adobe Walls to be wide awake when the dawn attack began.
Only 28 hunters and traders occupied Adobe Walls, but they had two advantages over the Indians: the thick walls of the adobe structure were impenetrable to arrows and bullets, and the occupants had a number of high-powered rifles normally used on buffalo. The hunters breechloading .50 caliber Sharps rifles represented the latest technology in long-range, rapid firing weaponry (movie buffs may recall the rifle sported by a character called Matthew Quigley in Quigley Down Under which was based on these rifles).
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4481/pedersoliquigley563ho3.jpg
Already skilled marksmen, the buffalo hunters used the rifles to deadly effect, decimating the warriors before they came close enough even to return effective fire. On the second day of the siege, one hunter named Billy Dixon reportedly hit a Comanche at a distance of nine-tenths of a mile.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6909/quabillydixonbj8.gif
Billy Dixon. Two weeks later, a team of US Army surveyors would determine the distance of Dixon’s famed shot to be 1,538 yards, or nine-tenths of a mile. Billy Dixon later gave up buffalo hunting and became a scout for the US Army. As a scout at the “Buffalo Wallow Fight” Dixon would earn the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1893, he retired and built a home on the Adobe Walls site. He died there on March 9, 1913 at the age of 63.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2949/quaadobewallsrh2.jpg
Despite their overwhelmingly superior numbers, after three days the Indians concluded that Adobe Walls could not be taken and withdrew. The defenders had lost only four men in the attack, and they later estimated that the Indians had lost 13.
Enraged by their defeat, several Indian bands subsequently took their revenge on poorly defended targets in the form of remote homesteads. Fearful settlers demanded military protection, leading to the outbreak of the Red River War. By the time the war ended in 1875, the Comanche and Kiowa had been defeated and removed to their reservations in Oklahoma and Indian resistance on the Southern Plains had effectively collapsed.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2557/okterritoryla5.png