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White Horse – Kiowa
At the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, the U.S. government granted the Kiowa and Comanche the buffalo-rich lands south of the Arkansas River, “so long as the buffalo may range there in such numbers as to justify the chase.” Yet before winter of that same year, the military ordered the People removed to Fort Sill. With the recent memory of Black Kettle’s band being massacred, the Kiowa—led by Satanta and Lone Wolf—reluctantly went to the fort.
For generations, the Kiowa had grown corn before being pushed onto the plains to follow the buffalo. Now the government sought to “teach” them to raise corn and “be civilized.” The crops were good, but more than 4,500 Kiowa and Comanche, along with their livestock, quickly exhausted the harvest.
After two years of near starvation, the tribes returned to the hunt and the freedom of the plains. By then, white settlers crowded in from every side, slaughtering buffalo for hides and leaving the carcasses to rot, while fencing off the open land. The Kiowa and Comanche were forced into a desperate struggle for survival.
From 1870 to 1875, they fought against soldiers, broken treaties, encroaching settlers, and devastating disease. When the conflict ended, the great leaders were gone, the buffalo had vanished, and the power of the Kiowa and Comanche was broken.
White Horse was among the first warriors to raid into Texas near Fort Richardson, striking back against white encroachment on buffalo country. He continued to ride on raids as his people sought to stem the tide of settlers. In 1875, White Horse and twenty-five other Kiowa were imprisoned in the dungeons of Fort Marion, Florida.
There, White Horse became best remembered for his eloquent pictographic histories of the Kiowa Nation, drawn on ledger book pages—powerful testaments of his people’s struggle and spirit, created far from their homeland while he lived in captivity.