We live on the the eastern edge of the Comancheria, the empire controlled by the Comanche people for hundreds of years until the late 19th century.
“Many a story of early Austin involved raids in which the Indians made good their escape to the mountains west of town,” history advocate Richard Denney writes in an article for an upcoming issue of the Northwest Hills area newsletter, which he shared with us. “That is, to our neighborhood.”
Well, they came back. Thirty members of the Elder Council from the Comanche Nation Tribal Complex — based near Lawton, Okla. — visited Austin April 26 to reconnect with their past. Denney helped to organize that trip.
The day started at City Hall, where the Council was welcomed by Austin Mayor Steve Adler. Then they headed to Treaty Oak.
“(This is) the last surviving member of the Council Oaks, a grove of oaks that served as a sacred meeting place for Comanches,” Denney writes. “Foresters estimate the Treaty Oak to be about 500 years old.”
Then the Council cruised Lady Bird Lake.
“David Burnet, the first ad interim president of the Republic of Texas, lived among and traded with the Comanche for several years,” Denney writes. “Historian Mary Starr Barkley has speculated that President Mirabeau B. Lamar may have first learned about the location that would later be Austin from Burnet through his travels with the Comanches camping at and crossing the Shoal Creek ford.”
The council then headed by bus up to Mount Bonnell, a crucial lookout and defensive position for Indians and settlers, then off to the Oasis restaurant, which sits on Comanche Peak, one of the only geographic features in Travis County named for Native Americans.
“Nearby is Defeat Hollow, named after an encounter between Joel A. Harris — my third great grandfather and a settler on Hudson Bend — and Comanches,” Denney writes. “When asked ‘Who got defeated?,’ I told them it was a tie, which got a good laugh!”