Essentially they were ferocious and highly mobile guerillas who thought nothing of raiding a thousand miles (from Kansas into Mexico), often - maybe usually - riding at night by the light of the moon.
To this day a summertime full moon is often referred to (at least in Texas) as a "Comanche Moon). In fact, that was the title of a miniseries set in the old west not so very long ago.
The book does a great job describing the rise of the Comanche from obscure beginning to their domination of the central Great Plains. They were the best horsemen in North America and the masters of the hit-and-run. They put so much pressure on settled tribes (not to mention Spanish colonists) that they essentially stopped Spanish advancement north of the Rio Grande. The book makes the case that the Mexican government invited the Americans into Texas to act as a buffer between Mexico and the Comanches. The Texas border with them was bloody and settlement was slow.
The end of the Civil War and the introduction of repeating firearms (and light horse artillery), combined with the slaughter of the bison herds was a problem that the Comanches could never solve. Even so, Kit Carson admitted that their chief Quanah Parker (son of a kidnapped Texas girl who went native in the tribe) almost wiped out his entire command. The second half of the book is Quanah's story, from the greatest war chief of the Plains to the Reservation, and ultimately to his unlikely friendship with Teddy Roosevelt.
Highly, highly recommended.
The book left out what I think is perhaps the most unlikely Comanche story, that of David Pendleton Okenhater. Born as O-kun-ha-tuh (Making Medicine) in the 1840s, he was in the thick of the Comanche wars of the 1860s - he was with Quanah at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. In prison at Ft. Marion in Florida in the 1870s he ended up as First Sergeant of the prisoners (really!) and was noticed by Capt. Pratt for the art he was creating (really!). Pratt encouraged his art career and one of his pieces came into the collection of Mrs. Alice Key Pendleton, wife of a Senator from Ohio (really!). The Pendletons paid for Okenhater to be sent to live at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New York. He took their name out of respect and gratitude.
He was baptized there in 1878 and ordained a deacon in 1881. As a Deacon he was sent essentially as a missionary back to the Cheyenne. He lived out his life as a Deacon and a Cheyenne Chief until his death in 1931. That was a long way from a taker of scalps. A long way.
In 1985, the Episcopal Church declared David Pendleton Okenhater a saint. His feast day is September 1. That's quite some Medicine for O-Kun-Ha-Tuh to make.
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