[1] The raids were stimulated by the desire of Comanches to accumulate wealth through plunder, principally horses, mules, and Mexican captives for ransom or slaves who became integrated into the tribe.

The raids escalated proportionally to Mexico's inability to defend its citizens during the turbulent years after it gained independence in 1821 and a large and growing market in the United States for stolen Mexican horses and cattle.

Comanche power diminished due to a cholera epidemic in 1849, encroachment on their lands in Texas by white settlers, the near-extinction of the bison which was their principal source of food, and the U.S. Army's campaigns against them.

"[3] That power would be amply demonstrated as the United States and the newly independent country of Mexico contested ownership of Texas and much of the area now known as the southwestern U.S.

The Comanche considered themselves owners of a 500-by-400-mile (800 by 640 km) block of land that stretched from the Arkansas River in Colorado to near the Rio Grande in Texas.

Conflicts led to punitive expedition by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1779, resulting a battle in eastern Colorado in which the Comanche leader Greenhorn was killed.

The Spanish welcomed the Comanche as an ally against the Apache, forgave their transgressions, traded manufactured items and corn to them for horses, captives, and buffalo meat, and showered them with gifts.

Traders journeyed in increasing numbers along the Santa Fe Trail across the northern border of Comancheria and Anglo hunters depleted the buffalo herds in that vicinity.

On several occasions in the 1820s the Comanche attempted to obtain Mexican military assistance to repel the Indian invaders of their land, but their requests were denied.

However, as an inducement to peaceful relations, Mexican provincial governments made haste to strengthen trade ties with the Comanche in the early 1830s.

[9] An important factor encouraging Comanche raids of Mexican ranches was the huge demand for horses and mules by the Anglo-Americans now flooding into lands west of the Mississippi River.

"[12] In 1835, the state of Chihuahua, ravaged by Apache as well as Comanche raids, offered a bounty of 100 pesos (about U.S.$100) for each scalp of a hostile Indian man and lesser amounts for women and children.

[15] With their eastern flank secured by the treaty with the U.S., the Comanches next concluded a peace agreement in 1840 with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho pressing on them from the north.

The massacre of 35 Comanche chiefs attending a peace conference in San Antonio in March 1840 set off a series of bloody reprisals and battles.

Although the Texans demonstrated they could punish the Comanche (See Battle of Plum Creek) military campaigns emptied their treasury and Texas became more accommodating.

[21] What the agreements with the United States and neighboring tribes and a hiatus in the struggle with Texas accomplished was to free up the Comanche to make unrestrained war on the Mexican provinces south of the Rio Grande.

[22] Comanche raids before 1840 had generally penetrated only a short distance south of the Rio Grande and had usually resulted in only a few deaths and the theft of a few thousand livestock.

The threat, however, from the Comanche was serious enough in 1826 in northern Nuevo León, that the Governor issued orders that no one should venture out of villages into the countryside except in groups of at least thirty armed men.

Upwards of ten thousand head of horses and mules have already been carried off, and scarcely has a hacienda or rancho on the frontier been unvisited, and every where the people have been killed or captured.

Moreover, the Federal government of Mexico, embroiled in political disputes, gave little assistance to its northern states and their citizens to fend off the Comanche.

The numerous small Comanche bands came together in summer, usually on the Red River or one of its tributaries in Texas or Oklahoma to formulate plans and organize groups of raiders.

[31] In fall, small groups of Comanche rendezvoused at Big Spring and headed south along well-known trails, riding at night during the full moon.

They crossed the Rio Grande either east or west of the Big Bend and met up and united in the Bolson de Mapimi, a large empty desert and range region.

[32] From the Bolson, the Comanche branched out in all directions in small and large groups, expanding their range to raid into tropical Mexico as far south as Jalisco and Querétaro.

The old system of presidios (military bases) staffed by soldiers and scattered around the frontier deteriorated and most defense relied on locally recruited and equipped militia.

[37] In 1848, the government of Mexico turned its attention to the Indian raids, allocated more money, and stationed more soldiers in the impacted northern states.

In 1850, more than 700 of the Seminole, Kickapoo, and African-Americans agreed to assist in the defense against Comanche raiders in exchange for land to settle in the Mexican state of Coahuila.

"We travel the roads…at their [i.e., the Comanches and Apaches] whim; we cultivate the land where they wish and in the amount they wish; we use sparingly things they have left to us until the moment that it strikes their appetite to take them for themselves.

[44] It is our wish to see you liberated from despots, to drive back the savage Comanches, to prevent the renewal of their assaults, and to compel them to restore to you from captivity your long lost wives and children.

By 1856, authorities in horse-rich Durango would claim that Indian raids, mostly Comanche, in their state had taken nearly 6,000 lives, abducted 748 people, and forced the abandonment of 358 settlements over the previous 20 years.