The ethnonym (group name), Yamparika or "Root Eater" Comanche was known to the Spaniards of New Mexico as early as the 1750s, but until about 1790, they were generally north of the Arkansas River and so were seldom specifically mentioned in Spanish documents.

After that time, with the advance of Cheyennes (Comanche: paka naboo 'striped arrows'), and Cuampes, likely Arapahos, some Yamparika local groups, including the Ketahto, relocated to the valley of the North Canadian River in New Mexico and Texas.

[1] Later Comanche oral history states that in his young adult years, he was noted for leading horse-mounted spear attacks on Lakota villages.

Ten Bears was often in rivalry with a man named either Isakwahip 'Wolf's Back', or Isakiip 'Wolf's Elbow', leader of another local group in the North Canadian valley.

Sun Eagle) (Tawaquenah), likely the Nokoni Tall Tree (Huupi-pahati) and certainly the Penateka Buffalo Hump (Pocheha-quehip, Potsʉnakwahipʉ) and Yellow Wolf (Isaviah) and probably the Kwahadi Iron Jacket (Pohebits-quasho); together with Ten Bears (Parrawasamen), probably Tawaquenah and Huupi-pahati, certainly Buffalo Hump (Pocheha-quehip) and eventually Iron Jacket (Pohebits-quasho) represented Comanche nation during the negotiation near the Two Butte Creek, resulting in a peace agreement and a strong alliance between the two groups.

In August 1861 Ten Bears (likely being himself the chief named as “Bistevana”) signed the Fort Cobb Treaty with gen. Albert Pike, the Confederate Indian Commissioner, sanctioning an alliance with the “Gray Jackets”.

In November 1864, Ten Bears was the chief of the Yamparika Comanches nearest the ruins of the Bent brothers' old adobe trading post (the first Adobe Walls, Texas, built ca 1840) when troops under Col. Christopher 'Kit' Carson attacked a nearby Kiowa village .

[1] In 1865, Ten Bears and two of his sons, Isananaka 'Wolf's Name' and Hitetetsi 'Little Crow', along with other Comanches, mostly Yamparikas, signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas River in Kansas.

This was problematic, as the Federal government did not then "own" that territory and therefore could not reserve it: the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States in 1849, but the Republic did not recognize any native land claims within its borders — this opinion was based on a faulty reading of Spanish and Mexican law and therefore in 1865 there were no "federal" versus "state" owned lands within the boundaries of Texas which the Government could "reserve" to the Native Americans.

Two years later, at the October 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty Conference, Ten Bears and other Yamparikas as well as a few other Comanches (but none of the newly emergent Kwahada division, who were delayed by sickness), agreed to a smaller reservation in western Indian territory of Oklahoma.

Two years ago I came upon this road, following the buffalo, that my wives and children might have their cheeks plump and their bodies warm.

The blue dressed soldiers and the Utes came from out of the night when it was dark and still, and for camp fires they lit our lodges.

Instead of hunting game they killed my braves, and the warriors of the tribe cut short their hair for the dead.

[4]A year later in December 1868, a number of Yamparika local bands, including Ten Bear's, were along the Washita River in western Indian Territory, near their allied Cheyennes and within the boundaries of the latter's reservation.

[1] In 1872, Ten Bears again visited Washington, along with a delegation that included his grandson Cheevers (probably from the Spanish chiva 'goat', although Attocknie argues that it was tsii putsi 'little pitied one'),[1] as well as other Comanches and Kiowas.