The Comanches were the best known of the Indigenous peoples that frequented the area now Erath County. The 1680 Pueblo Revolt in the Southwest released thousands of horses that were traded northward, soon reaching the Shoshones in present Wyoming. The Shoshones both physically and politically lacked stature among among Natives venturing onto the Plains to hunt buffalo. The horse changed everything. Ethnographers have collected stories and legends that describe smallpox and violent incidents that led to the Comanches breaking away from the Shoshone parent group. Following the buffalo, the Comanches migrated south, following the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains into the Southern Plains as they gained respect from other Plains Indians for their early use of mounted fighting and specialization in equestrian bison hunting. The Spanish recorded the Comanche arrival at Taos in 1706 and they must have spread into Texas soon after. The Lipan Apache had recently begun to control the Southern Plains where they had been raiding Wichita villages for captives for the Spanish slave market in San Antonio and New Mexico. The Comanches overwhelmed the Lipans, driving them below San Antonio. The Comanches then established themselves as Lords of the Southern Plains and organized their own trade networks with the Spanish.

Dan Young. Unpublished Manuscript, 2022.