Before the Founding of Lawton
Land Lottery and Auction
Game
Teaching Materials
Chief Quanah Parker in Full Regalia |
By 1872, life on the reservations was much worse. Many natives were starving. They had to kill and eat their mules and horses so they could feed their families. A large group of natives warriors decided to fight. They wanted to drive the whites off their land. The Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne braves went to war. They began their attack on the Canadian River. There was a small outpost there called Adobe Walls where white men who were buffalo hunters had gathered. |
The natives said they had been told lies. The U.S. made many promises in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. One of the promises was to keep buffalo hunters north of the Arkansas River. But hundreds of hunters crossed the river. They killed thousands of buffalo on the Southern Plains. The government did not keep its word.
The natives started a fight at Adobe Walls. On the third day, some of the white men had an idea. Billy Dixon was a sharpshooter. He was well known because he could kill buffalo a long way off. The men said Dixon ought to shoot a warrior on a bluff east of the Adobe Walls Creek. Dixon grabbed his 50-90 Sharps rifle. He shot the native off his horse from 1,538 yards away. This was an awesome shot!
Years went by. Then a different buffalo hunter told a story. The tale was about an exciting visit with a Comanche chief. The chief's name was Quanah Parker. This story took place after the chief was living on the reservation.
“I watched you shoot buffalo, and I was afraid to attack the men who used the rifle that shot today and killed tomorrow,” Quanah said. He remembered the big Sharps rifles. He recalled how the hunters killed bison from far away.
The warriors outnumbered the hunters at Adobe Walls. But they did not have the power to defeat them.
View the time line of events in the West from 1870-1880.
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