Comanchería: The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire

They struck with the ferocity of a thunderstorm on the open prairie. Once they were a relatively feeble tribe, dwelling in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Until, that is, they came into possession of horses. And so it was that seemingly out of nowhere, they emerged as an unstoppable force, the greatest light cavalry ever seen in the western hemisphere. They called themselves Numunuu, “the people.” Their Ute cousins called them Kumantsi, “someone who wants to fight me all the time.” The Spanish called them, “Comanche.”

Between 1700 and 1800 these “lords of the southern plains” carved an immense empire stretching from modern-day Kansas, to the Rio Grande, and from the Rocky Mountain foothills of Colorado and New Mexico, to east Texas.  For a century and a half, the Comanche played one colonial power off one another, collected tribute, and dominated trade over a vast swath of North America that became known as “Comanchería.”