SUMMER 1847
Fig. 97—Winter 1846—47—Mustache shooting.
Mâ´nka-gúădal Ehótal-de Pai, "Summer that Red-sleeve was killed." The figure shows the Indian leader with his war-bonnet and red sleeve. The medicine lodge is absent, showing that there was no sun dance that year.
Mânka-gúădal is the Kiowa name of the Comanche chief Red-sleeve (Îkämosa?), who was killed in an attack against a party of Santa Fé traders in Kansas, where the Santa Fé trail crossed Pawnee fork of the Arkansas, below the present Fort Larned, which was not built until 1859. Pawnee fork, properly called by the Kiowa Aíkoñ P'a, "Dark-timber river," is sometimes called by them from this circumstance Mâ´nka-gúădal-de P'a, "Red-sleeve's river." According to the story told by the Kiowa, they and the Comanche were out in search of the Pawnee when they met at this point a large party of white men with wagons—evidently Santa Fé traders. Red-sleeve wanted to attack them, but Set-ängya, the Kiowa leader, refused, saying that the whites were their friends. Red-sleeve then taunted the Kiowa as cowards, put on his war-bonnet, and, calling his Comanche, attacked the traders. The Kiowa, wishing to avoid trouble, drew off. About the first fire a bullet went through the leg of Red-sleeve and into the spine of his horse, so that the animal fell, pinning his wounded rider to the ground. He called on Set-ängya to help him, but the Kiowa chief refused on account of the taunt of cowardice, and the white men came up to Red-sleeve and shot him.
Fig. 98—Summer 1847—Red-sleeve killed.
As the government had but little communication with the tribes of the southern plains until some years after the Mexican war, there is no direct notice of this occurrence in the official reports, but a letter by agent Fitzpatrick in the report of the Indian Commissioner for 1848, the year after the attack upon the train, bears out the statement of the Kiowa that they were anxious to keep peace with the whites, even at the risk of quarreling with the Comanche and losing some very profitable business opportunities. Speaking of depredations upon parties traveling on the emigrant roads and the Santa Fé trail, he says:
Fig. 99—Winter 1847—48—Winter camp.
Before leaving there [Bent's fort] last February I had an interview with some of the Kiaway chiefs, and who have heretofore been allies of the Comanches. They expressed themselves as sorry for having anything to do with the war against us, and promised to quit their country and all intercourse with the Comanches and join the Cheyennes on the Arkansas, who are the friends of the whites. This course I approved, and since my departure from that country last spring learned that nearly all the Kiaways have moved to the country of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes and are living in perfect amity with the surrounding tribes.
He also states that there seem to have been fewer attacks made upon travelers along the Santa Fé road recently, which he can account for only on the supposition that "the Indians having, in 1846 and 1847, secured so much booty by their daring outrages upon travelers, are now and have been the past summer luxuriating in and enjoying the spoils" (Report, 77).