Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma

The Kiowa tribe lived mostly in north Texas, Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico at the time of the arrival of Europeans.

According to historic accounts the Kiowa resided in the northern basin of the Missouri River where the migrating Crow Nation first met them in the Pryor Mountains, then the Kiowa migrated easterly to the Black Hills around 1650. Pushed southward by the invading Cheyennes and Sioux who were being pushed out of their lands in the great lakes regions by the Ojibwa tribes, the Kiowa moved down the Platte River basin to the Arkansas River area. There they fought with the Comanches, who already occupied the land.

In the early spring of 1790, at the place that would become Las Vegas, New Mexico, a Kiowa party lead by war leader Guikate made an offer of peace to a Comanche party while both were visiting the home of a friend of both tribes. This led to a later meeting between Guikate and the head chief of the Nokoni Comanches. The two groups made an alliance to share the same hunting grounds, and entered into a mutual defense pact. From that time on, the Comanches and Kiowa hunted, traveled, and made war together. An additional group, the Plains Apache (also called Kiowa-Apache), affiliated with the Kiowa at this time.

After 1840 the Kiowas, with their former enemies the Cheyennes, as well as their allies the Comanches and the Apaches, fought and raided the Eastern natives then moving into the Indian Territory. The United States military intervened, and in the Treaty of Medicine Lodge of 1867 the Kiowa agreed to settle on a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.