Council House Fight
The Council House Fight was a conflict between Republic of Texas officials and a Comanche peace delegation which took place in San Antonio on March 19, 1840. The meeting took place under a truce with the purpose of negotiating peace after two years of war. The Comanches sought to obtain recognition of the boundaries of the Comancheria, their homeland. The Texians wanted the release of Texian and Mexican captives held by the Comanches. The event ended with 12 Comanche leaders shot to death in the Council House, 23 shot in the streets of San Antonio, and 30 taken captive. The incident ended the chance for peace and led to years of hostility and war.
Background
The Comanche were not a unified Indian nation. There were at least 12 divisions of the Comanche, with as many as 35 independent roaming bands, also known as rancherías or villages. Although bound together in various ways, both cultural and political, the bands were under no formalized unified authority.
The absence of a central authority meant that one band could not make another band return their captives. Chiefs Buffalo Hump and Peta Nocona never agreed to return any captives. Among the Comanches, captives were often incorporated into the society and adopted into families. The Comanche made little distinction between people born Comanche and those adopted. The Comanche practice of taking captives dated back to at least the early 18th century and raids into Spanish New Mexico. Women and children were preferred, and in a significant number of cases young captives grew up as Comanches and did not wish to leave.