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| - The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians. These conflicts began when the first, mostly-Spanish, European settlers moved into Spanish Texas. They continued through Texas's time as part of Mexico, when more Europeans, especially Americans arrived, to the subsequent declaration of independence with the Republic of Texas, and did not end until 30 years after Texas joined the United States.
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abstract
| - The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians. These conflicts began when the first, mostly-Spanish, European settlers moved into Spanish Texas. They continued through Texas's time as part of Mexico, when more Europeans, especially Americans arrived, to the subsequent declaration of independence with the Republic of Texas, and did not end until 30 years after Texas joined the United States. Although several Indian tribes existed in the area, the preeminent tribal nation was the Comanche, the so-called "Lords of the Plains". Their territory, the Comancheria was the most powerful entity persistently-hostile to the Spanish, Mexicans, and, finally, the Texans. This article covers the conflicts from 1820, just before Mexico gained independence from Spain, until 1875, when the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma. The half-century struggle between the Plains tribes and the Texans became particularly intense after the Spanish, and then Mexicans, left power in Texas, and the Republic of Texas, and then the United States, opposed the tribes. Their war with the Plains Indians became one of deep animosity, slaughter, and, in the end, near-total conquest. Although the outcome was lop-sided, the violence of the wars was not, especially in regards to the Comanche. The latter led such a violent existence, looting, burning, murdering, and kidnapping as far south as Mexico City and especially destroying and capturing so many Texans that Comanche became a by-word for terrorism. Thus, when he recovered Cynthia Ann Parker at Pease River, Sul Ross observed that her recovery would be felt in every family in Texas, as every one of them had lost someone in the Indian Wars. Indeed, during the American Civil War, when the army was unavailable to protect the frontier, the Comanche and Kiowa pushed white settlements back over 100 miles on the Texas frontier.
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