White Horse

Who is White Horse?

White Horse, was a chief of the Kiowa. White Horse attended the council between southern plains tribes and the United States at Medicine Lodge in southern Kansas which resulted in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. Despite his attendance at the treaty signing he conducted frequent raids upon other tribes and white settlers.

In 1867 White Horse joined a war party of Comanches and Kiowas on a revenge raid against the Navajos, who were then living in exile on the reservation near Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

On June 12, 1870, White Horse led a raiding party on an attack on Fort Sill in Indian Territory and stole seventy-three mules. On June 22 in an attack on a cattle drive on the Chisolm Trail, White Horse killed and scalped two men, prior to the arrival of a cavalry detachment which drove them off.

On the 9th day of July, 1870, the Kiowa Indians made a raid into Montague County, Texas. They scattered a herd of cattle, killed two yoke of oxen, stole nine horses, one mule, a large amount of provisions, one tent, one wagon-cover, etc., all of which property was at the time owned by and in the possession of Colonel Samuel Newitt Wood.

In a raid on August 7, 1870 in Montague County, Texas, they killed German immigrant farmer, Gottlieb Koozer, and took his wife and five children captive along with fourteen-year-old Martin Kilgore; the family was ransomed for $100 each at Fort Sill. Quaker Indian agent Lawrie Tatum bargained upon behalf of the hostages, not paying until they were all returned. The raiding would continue until April 19, 1875 when he and his band surrendered at Fort Sill.