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96 Chapter 4 The Nature of Comanche Economics I n 1776 Fr. Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez detailed the commercial activity he witnessed among Comanches and New Mexicans at Taos. He noted that the Indians entered the pueblo particularly at times when they “are on their good behavior.” During these peaceful interludes, Comanches could be as friendly with the Taoseños as they could be their implacable enemies in times of hostility. As an amicable embassy of Indians called upon the settlement, excitement gripped the pueblo’s inhabitants. Twenty-six years earlier, Fray Andrés Varo commented on the enthusiasm exhibited by Taoseños at the arrival of a large Comanche trading party to the villa. Dismayed, the priest noted that Spanish and Indian Christians abandoned “all prudence” as they eagerly anticipated the lucrative exchange. New Mexicans called these events ferias, and indeed, the periodic congregations of people from pueblo and plains oftentimes took on the atmosphere of a medieval carnival complete with commercial ventures, various amusements, competitions, and the ever-present threat of rampant disorder.1 Trade served as the primary focus of these gatherings. Multitudes of people would mill about the trading grounds, where Comanches busily exchanged bison hides and meat, horses, mules, captives, guns, pistols, powder, tobacco, hatchets, and tin pots in return for knives, bridles, corn and corn meal, horses, mules, cloaks, blankets, and numerous other trifles. Father Domínguez declared that the trading activity he witnessed at Taos “resembl[ed] a second-hand market in Mexico.”2 Great quantities of goods passed hands many times during the event. Domínguez reported that people traded one bison hide for a broad iron knife known as a belduque. Bridles cost two hides or a tin pot, while maize and meal were exchanged directly for tasty and nutritious bison meat. Traders especially esteemed twelve- to twenty-year-old captive girls—far more than they did those of a higher age or any males. A Comanche could exchange one of his or her prized female servants for two good horses and other associated items, including cloaks and blankets used to cover and decorate mounts. In one case, a mule with an attendant scarlet cover was the price for a young girl. Mules, the barren offspring of horses and donkeys, were relatively rare and highly valued as work and pack animals by Comanches and New Mexicans alike. Accordingly, these animals fetched “either a cover or a short cloak or a good horse,” while the latter animal simply elicited offers of “a poor bridle, but garnished with rags.” A pistol equaled a bridle, but these items together could pay for a horse. Based on his observations of this behavior, Domínguez concluded that Comanches “are great traders, for as soon as they buy anything, they usually sell exactly what they bought.”3 The priest observed a general friendliness among the Comanches with whom the New Mexicans engaged in trade. Years later, the American trader Josiah Gregg noticed a similar demonstration of friendly behavior among some Comanches he encountered in 1839 while traveling across the plains from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Santa Fe. A few days after arriving at Camp Holmes, Indian Territory, in mid-May, “a party of Comanches, who having heard of our approach came to greet us a welcome, on the supposition that it was their friend [Missouri trader Auguste Pierre] Chouteau returning to the fort with fresh supplies of merchandise.”4 Interested in learning whether or not the Canadian River valley was suited for the passage of heavily laden wagons, Gregg and his men sought out the chief of the visiting Indians. They soon found themselves introduced to Tabequena, “a corpulent, squint-eyed old fellow, who certainly had nothing in his personal appearance indicative of rank or dignity.” Presented with pencil and paper, Tabequena roughly drew up a document that bore “much to our astonishment, quite a map-like appearance” and informed the wayfarers “the route up the Canadian presented no obstacles according to his mode of traveling .” On May 18 Gregg’s caravan departed in the direction of Santa Fe, while the Indians headed east toward Fort Gibson, situated in eastern Indian Territory on the banks of the Neosho River just above its confluence with the Arkansas. The following day, “Tábba-quena, and another Comanche chief, with five or six warriors , and as many squaws, including Tab’s wife and infant son” caught up to Gregg and his men, communicating that they had aborted their trip...

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