| The
battle of Palo Duro Canyon was the major battle of the Red River War,
which ended in the confinement of southern Plains Indians
(Comanches, Kiowas, Kiowa Apaches, Cheyennes, and Arapahos) to the
reservations in the Indian Territory. By late September 1874 the
warring Indians had camped in the protection of Palo Duro Canyon,
where a Kiowa shaman, Maman-ti, promised them they would be safe.
Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie led his Fourth United States Cavalry from
the south in a plan to trap the Indians in their refuge. His
soldiers pursued several small Comanche bands into Tule Canyon and
defeated them. Mackenzie reached the edge of Palo Duro Canyon on
September 28, 1874, guided by the Tonkawa chief Johnson, and ordered
his scouts to locate a path to the canyon floor, which they quickly
did. Although Mackenzie's attack on the large Indian encampment at
sunrise on September 28 was designed to be a surprise, the Indians
were warned by the Comanche leader Red Warbonnet, who discovered the
soldiers and fired a warning shot. He was then killed by the
Tonkawas. The leadership of the several Indian bands fell to the
Cheyenne chief Iron Shirt, Comanche leader Poor Buffalo, and the
Kiowa chief Lone Wolf. Because their camps were scattered over a
large area on the canyon floor, the Indians were unable to assemble
a united defense; the soldiers fought a series of skirmishes against
a number of war parties who lacked the individual strength to defeat
them.
Mackenzie's
soldiers and scouts initially destroyed Red Warbonnet's village, an
act that spread panic among the other Indian villages in the canyon.
The Tonkawa scouts, accompanied by their women, were responsible for
most of the destruction of Comanche property and also gathered an
enormous amount of loot. Many Indians abandoned their belongings and
even their horses and fled the canyon for the open plains. Some of
the warriors fought back, sniping at the soldiers, but their
resistance was insufficient, and by nightfall Mackenzie's soldiers
and Tonkawa scouts had captured the Indians' villages and most of
their possessions. The Indian losses at Palo Duro Canyon amounted to
three warriors dead. One white was killed. Mackenzie's troops also
captured more than 1,400 Indian ponies. Of these, forty were given
to Johnson and another 300 to the other scouts. The remaining ponies
were shot by the soldiers. Most of the Indians' supplies, including
their entire winter food supply, was also destroyed. Though the loss
of life on both sides was remarkably small, the battle of Palo Duro
Canyon is significant because it represented the southern Plains
Indians' last effort at military resistance against the encroaching
whites. |
