The Great Plains is the huge area in the central portion of the North American continent which stretches from the Canadian provinces in the north, almost to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River in the east. This was a region inhabited by and utilized by many different Native American groups. The Spanish, driven in part by their lust for wealth and rumors of wealthy kingdoms filled with gold, had first explored the southern and central Plains in the 1500s. While these early expeditions failed to find any riches, rumors of gold and other riches persisted.
In 1601, Juan de Oñate led an expedition of 70 men with ox-drawn carts from New Mexico in search of the fabled land of Quivira in present-day Kansas. While the expedition was not successful, it did encounter Apaches and buffalo. The Spanish estimated the population of one Apache hunting camp at 5,000 people. The Apaches were Lipan Apaches who the Spanish called Vaqueros (“Cowboys”). The expedition did not encounter any of the Teyas (Caddo) groups found by Coronado sixty years earlier. The empty spaces encountered by Oñate seem to suggest that European diseases, such as smallpox, had resulted in massive depopulation.
Using Apache guides, the Spanish arrived at a Wichita village. The Wichitas, another Caddoan-speaking group, were an agricultural people who raised corn, beans, and squash. They lived in permanent villages with houses made of grass that looked like large conical haystacks.
While the Wichitas greeted the Spanish in a friendly fashion, the Apaches and the Wichitas were enemies. The Apaches told the Spanish that the Wichitas had killed earlier Spanish explorers and that they were still holding one captive. When a Wichita delegation visited the Spanish, they were taken captive to exchange for the reported Spanish captive. The Wichitas, concerned that the Spanish were working with their enemies, withdrew from their village. The Apaches then burned the village and took a number of women and children captive. The Spanish ordered the women released but kept the children so that they could become Christian.
One of the prisoners was a young boy that the Spanish called Miguel. He was actually Tonkawa and had been taken captive by the Wichitas in north central Oklahoma. The Tonkawa homeland was in Texas and southern Oklahoma.
The Spanish persuaded the Wichitas to join them in a campaign against the people of the “Great Settlement” (probably Jumanos). The Spanish blamed these people for the murder of two Spaniards and the Wichitas regarded them as old enemies. The “Great Settlement” was composed of 1,200 to 2,000 houses with a population of about 20,000. In the end, the groups met and negotiated a settlement. Presents were exchanged, including corn and corn bread.
Somewhere in Kansas, the Spanish had a conflict with an Indian group they called the Escanxaques. The Spanish would later report that they engaged in a 4-5 hour battle with 1,500 Escanxaque warriors. The Spanish, unlike the Indians, had horses and their horses were fully armored, including face masks. As the Spanish soldiers rode into battle they were met by a cloud of arrows. Most of the men and the horses were quickly wounded and the Spanish withdrew from the battle.
While the Spanish were successful in establishing colonies in the Southwest and California, they failed to establish a lasting presence on the Plains. The Plains Indians actively resisted Spanish attempts to convert them to Catholicism and they preferred to trade with the French who came in later and seemed to understand the Indians better.
More American Indian histories
Note: Indians 201 is an earlier essay which has been updated and expanded.
Indians 101: The Hopi and the Spanish
Indians 101: The Timucua and the Spanish
Indians 101: American Indians and Europeans 400 years ago, 1622
Indians 101: American Indians and the Dutch 400 years ago, 1624
Indians 101: Iroquois Indians and the French 400 years ago, 1624
Indians 201: The Spanish search for the mythical American Indian cities of Cibola
Indians 201: American Indians and the establishment of Jamestown
Indians 201: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680