By the early 1700s, the Spanish were baffled. For decades, the Apache had raided their settlements in New Mexico with relentless fury, killing, stealing horses, and vanishing into the western terrain. Then, suddenly, the attacks stopped. Reports surfaced that the Apache were abandoning their farms and plains settlements, fleeing in haste.

The Spanish heard whispers of massive battles fought against an unknown enemy from the north, a force mounted on horseback, described as powerful, swift, and perilous. By the 1720s, the devastation was so complete that many Apache groups had retreated into the mountains or begged for refuge with the Spanish. Some bands never made it. Spanish expeditions discovered that entire plains-dwelling Apache groups, such as the Ferrones, Carlones, and Palomas, had vanished completely, exterminated by an enemy they could not yet name.

The Utes finally revealed the identity of the phantom invaders. They called them the Commencia, a word that in their language meant those who are perpetually opposed to me. The Spanish would come to know them as the Comanche. The Comanche had not always been so formidable.

For generations, they had been pushed into the least desirable territories east of the Rockies, bullied by more powerful tribes, including the Apache. They were survivors in a harsh land, nursing a deep grudge. But their fortunes were transformed by the arrival of the horse, a gift delivered indirectly by their greatest enemy. When the Pueblo Indians revolted against the Spanish in 1680 and drove them out of New Mexico, thousands of Spanish horses escaped into the plains.

These mustangs, perfectly adapted to the environment, spread rapidly. Within two decades, all the regional tribes had adopted horseback riding, but it was the Comanche who mastered it like no other. Unlike their rivals, the Comanche learned to breed horses rather than simply raid for them. Horses became their currency and their source of wealth.

While the Eastern Apache and other semi-agricultural tribes remained tethered to their farms and cornfields, the Comanche embraced a fully nomadic existence. Their mobility was unmatched, allowing them to strike anywhere within a four-hundred-mile radius. They became expert buffalo hunters and fearsome warriors, conducting most of their raids in the spring and summer when the plains grass was lush enough to sustain their herds. They often moved under the light of a full moon, which gave them visibility for their merciless attacks.

The raids were brutal, characterized by killings, tortures, and atrocities so common that settlers came to call these periods the Comanche moon. What set the Comanche apart from nearly every other Native American tribe was their ability to fight entirely on horseback. The artist George Catlin, who observed them firsthand, noted that on foot they seemed unremarkable, but once mounted, they underwent a remarkable transformation. He declared them the most exceptional horsemen he had encountered in all his travels.

They could shoot arrows with deadly precision while riding at full gallop, targeting both enemies and buffalo. They would lean off the sides of their horses, firing accurately from beneath the animal’s neck. The Apache, by contrast, used horses primarily for travel and dismounted to fight. On foot, they were formidable, equally ruthless, but their agricultural lifestyle made them predictable.

They could never camp in the same place twice on the warpath, yet their reliance on corn tethered them to specific lands. The historian T. R. Fehrenbach summarized their downfall succinctly: it was the craving for corn that led to their ruin when their territory was invaded by true savages on horseback.

The Comanche were ruthless toward the Apache, but their ultimate goal was not annihilation. They wanted resources, particularly the prime buffalo grazing grounds the Apache had long controlled. According to Thomas Britten’s book on the Lipan Apache, the Comanche strategy was consistent: ambush the Apache at their rancherias with sudden assaults, kill as many as possible, capture women and children for the New Mexico slave trade, and pillage the settlements, destroying huts and crops. By the 1720s, the Mescaleros and Jicarillas had retreated from the plains.

In 1723, a major Comanche assault on the Lipan Apache at El Sierra del Fierro lasted several days, resulting in numerous Lipan casualties and the capture of many women and children. The Lipan were forced to withdraw to the mountains and deserts, caught between the overwhelming Comanche force to the north and the hostile Spanish to the south. Desperate, the Apache devised a new strategy. In 1749, they approached San Antonio, seeking peace with the Spanish.

This was a relief to the Spanish, who had suffered constant raids since the city’s founding in 1719, raids that included kidnappings, murders, and the theft of thousands of horses. The Apache asked not only for peace but also for the Spanish to establish a mission and presidio within their territory, offering to convert to Christianity, a notion they had previously rejected. The Spanish priests eagerly seized the opportunity. It could end the raids permanently and save Apache souls.

A site was selected at a location known as San Sabá, and funding was provided by a wealthy Spaniard who requested that his brother, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, manage the mission. A seasoned Spanish officer, Don Diego Ortiz de Parrilla, was appointed to oversee the project. In April 1757, the Spanish assembled their supplies, a handful of priests, one hundred soldiers, and approximately two thousand animals. But upon departure, the Apache were conspicuously absent.

At San Sabá, they were still nowhere to be seen. Undeterred, the Spanish erected the mission and presidio about two miles apart, both fortified by substantial wooden palisades. Occasionally, Apache would visit the mission, requesting gifts and assuring the Spanish they were about to relocate nearby. After months of inaction, the priests grew exasperated, suspecting the entire arrangement was a ruse to obtain gifts.

The truth was revealed in March 1758. San Sabá was not in Apache territory at all. It was Comanche land. The Apache had been using the area as a base for raids against the Comanche, deliberately spreading false information about a Spanish fort there and leaving behind Spanish tools and footwear in their abandoned camps to suggest a Spanish alliance.

In early March 1758, as the spring grass began to sprout and the full moon illuminated the plains, all Apache presence around San Sabá vanished. At dawn, the Spanish heard war cries from beyond the fortifications and discovered that over sixty of their horses were missing. A reconnaissance team of fifteen soldiers returned hastily, reporting that the hills were teeming with adversaries. For nearly two weeks, the Comanche held back while the presidio went into lockdown.

Father Terreros and about thirty others remained at the mission, two miles away. On March 16, the Comanche arrived at the gates of both locations. At the mission, they initially pretended to be friendly, accompanied by several other native tribes with whom the Spanish had established peaceful relations. The priests allowed them entry.

Once inside, the Spanish attempted to placate the Comanche with offerings, but the gesture quickly escalated into a massacre. Reports vary, but it is estimated that the Comanche killed between eight and ten people at the mission, including Father Terreros. They burned the structures, desecrated the corpses, and looted the goods. A few individuals managed to flee to the better-fortified presidio.

Parrilla attempted to send soldiers to bolster the mission’s defenses, but they were swiftly attacked and forced to retreat. The Comanche refrained from assaulting the presidio itself. They had made their statement, and two days later, they vanished as abruptly as they had arrived. The Spanish response came the following year.

In 1759, a punitive expedition led by Parrilla marched north. It did not go well. The Spanish indiscriminately killed numerous Tonkawa simply for being in their path. In October, they confronted the Comanche at the Red River.

The Comanche, alerted to their approach, were waiting in overwhelming numbers. The Spanish fielded approximately one thousand personnel, but the Comanche boasted at least double that. The sight instilled terror in the Spanish ranks. The one hundred and thirty Apache auxiliaries accompanying them, fully aware of Comanche capabilities, had no desire for this fight.

Parrilla tried to maintain cohesion, but as the battle commenced, many fled. What was meant to be a demonstration of strength became a panicked retreat, with the Spanish abandoning their supplies, including cannons. The Apache strategy of creating a buffer of Spanish power against the Comanche had utterly failed. Now it was the Spanish who needed a new approach.

Following the San Sabá disaster, the Apache resumed their raids, driven not only by malice but by desperation, displaced from the plains and unable to grow crops. In 1780, Texas Governor Domingo Cabello reported from San Antonio: there is no moment, day or night, when reports of atrocities and disturbances do not arrive from the ranches. Completely vulnerable as we are, this situation can only lead to the total devastation and loss of this province. Despite being attacked by two formidable powers, the Spanish realized these two powers were enemies of each other, and they sought to exploit the rivalry.

For decades, their attempts to communicate with the Comanche had failed. This changed when an officer named Don Juan Bautista de Anza earned a measure of respect. He led an expedition into Comancheria, employing mounted tactics similar to the Comanche, and successfully ambushed a group near Greenhorn Peak. The Comanche had underestimated the Spanish.

Anza capitalized on his success with further assaults in the following years. Whenever he captured Comanche during his raids, he would release them with a message: they could choose peace and trade at their discretion. By 1785, the Comanche had not suffered catastrophic losses, but the toll was significant enough to bring them to the negotiating table. Several bands sent representatives to a meeting in Taos, where Anza’s diplomatic skill convinced them to appoint a single spokesperson.

At the conclusion of the meeting, they reached three agreements: the Comanche would cease hostilities against the Spanish, trade relations would be established between the two peoples, and the Comanche would assist the Spanish in eliminating the Apache. It was a substantial triumph for the Spanish, halting one war and setting the stage for the systematic destruction of their long-standing adversary. The campaign reached a bloody climax in January 1790, when Spanish General Juan de Ugalde commanded a formidable force of Spanish and Comanche warriors against the Lipan Apache in Texas. Hundreds of Lipan were trapped in a canyon west of San Antonio and slaughtered.

Following this defeat, the Lipan were reduced to fewer than a thousand warriors. Like other Apache groups, they vacated their remaining territories on the edges of Comancheria and retreated entirely into the mountains, this time permanently. The Comanche had solidified their control over the plains, becoming the most dominant native group in North America. For a period, the Spanish no longer considered the Apache a significant threat to their settlements, and the peace between the Spanish and the Comanche endured for decades.

But the Apache proved remarkably resilient. While the Comanche triumphed on the open plains, the challenging terrain of the mountains diminished the advantage of their horses. In that rugged environment, the Apache were able to mount a successful resistance.

In the end, both the Spanish and the Comanche would eventually fall to other forces, but that is a story for another time.