Comancheria

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The Comancheria is the name commonly given to the historical homeland of the Comanche. The area was vaguely defined but generally was described as being north and west of a line that stretched from San Antonio, Texas in the south to the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma and Kansas in the north.

Geographically, this line is a natural boundary between the rolling Blackland Prairie and river valleys in the east and the drier High Plains in the west. The farms and settlements in the fertile land along this line were natural targets for Comanche raiding parties who would typically raid along the many rivers and creeks that flowed from west to east across this line.

In 1837, a negotiated peace treaty between the Comanches and the new Republic of Texas failed when the Texas Congress refused to officially define the southern and eastern boundaries of the Comancheria. This was primarily because the frontier between Anglo and Comanche land was constantly being pushed westward as land in the east was settled and thus any such definition would be a de facto concession to the Comanche and a renunciation of any claim to the land by the Texas government.

Today, this region makes up West Texas, the Llano Estacado, the Texas Panhandle, eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle, the Wichita Mountains, and small portions of Colorado and Kansas.