[1] Their autonym is Ná'ishą, or "takers" based on their skill at stealing horses,[1] or Naishadena, meaning "our people.

Their tribal jurisdictional area covers parts of Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Greer, Jackson, Kiowa, Tillman and Harmon Counties in Oklahoma.

[16] Some of the people from the Dismal River culture joined the Plains Apache in the Black Hills.

[16] In the early 18th century, the Plains Apache lived around the upper Missouri River and maintained close connections to the Kiowa.

The Plains Apache continued migrating south along the eastern Rocky Mountains and hunting bison.

[2] The Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 established an Indian Reservation for the Kiowa, Plains Apache, and Comanche in Western Oklahoma.

The 1890 Census showed 1,598 Comanche at the Fort Sill reservation, which they shared with 1,140 Kiowa and 326 Plains Apache.

The Kiowa-Comanche-Apache (KCA) Reservation was broken up into individual allotments under the 1889 Springer Amendment to the Indian Appropriations Act.

[1] The Plains Apache social organization is split into numerous extended families (kustcrae), who camped together (for hunting and gathering) as local groups (gonka).

The next level was the division or band, a grouping of several gonkas (who would come together, for mutual protection, especially in times of war).

In pre-reservation times there were at least four local groups or gonkas who frequently joined together for warring neighboring tribes and settlements.