KIOWA TRIBE
1895 Maps of Indian Nations

The Kiowa Tribe were believed to have migrated from the mountain regions at the source of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in what is now western Montana.� According to tradition, they left this region because of a dispute with another tribe over hunting spoils, and they moved to the Black Hills in present-day South Dakota.� Toward the end of the 18^th Century, the Kiowa were driven south by the Sioux, finally settling in the area of present� western Oklahoma and the Panhandle of north Texas, and went into part of New Mexico.

Early in their history, they formed an alliance with a small band of Apache, which continues today in Oklahoma.� And in 1790, having made peace with their one-time enemies, the Comanche, they established control of the area from the Arkansas River to the headwaters of the Red River and the two tribes became masters of the southern Plains.� This alliance appears to be the basis for both the Kiowa-Apache-Comanche alliance of today and also the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Oklahoma, where the two tribes were settled by the United States.� In 1840, the Kiowa made a permenent peace with the Cheyenne and their allies, the Arapaho, and became friendly with the Wichita.� However,� they were enemies with the Caddo as well as with the Navajo and the Ute and the Ute and some western Apache groups.

Throughout the 19^th Century the continually resisted white immigration along the overland trails.� With the Comanche, they attacked Texas frontier settlement, extending their raids far south into Mexico.� Treaties with the United States Government beginning in 1837 had little effectm and the tribe continued fighting.� After the Battle of Washita in 1868, the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche were forced into a reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma.� Their defiance continued, however, and only military defeats and the disappearance of the buffalo ended their resistance.