Texas–Indian Wars

In this episode, we explore the Texas–Indian wars, a long and violent 19th-century struggle between Indigenous nations and successive Spanish, Mexican, Texan, and American settlers for control of the Texas frontier. Focusing especially on the Comanche, known as the “Lords of the Plains,” the episode examines how shifting policies—from Sam Houston’s diplomacy to Mirabeau B. Lamar’s campaign of removal and warfare—shaped decades of conflict. Through raids, military expeditions, disease, displacement, and resistance, the wars transformed Texas and devastated Native communities, ending in 1875 with the surrender of the last free Comanche bands and the collapse of their traditional way of life.