By 1700 Comanches moved south from the northern Rockies onto the plains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. They raided the Apaches and Spanish settlements from the late 1600s until 1779 when the Governor of New Mexico, Don Juan Bautista de Anza, decisively defeated a large group, led by Cuerno Verde in a battle near the mountains to the southwest of here. The Comanches signed a peace treaty in 1786, and a year later the asked for Spanish assistance to build a permanent farm village. The Spanish provided workmen, tools, farming implements, seed and livestock to help found San Carlos de los Jupes, but Comanche religious beliefs caused abandonment of the village within a year because a member of the tribe died there. It is believed that San Carlos de los Jupes was built just west of here at the confluence of the Arkansas and San Carlos rivers. Although this early Spanish attempt to colonize Plains Indians failed, the Comanches were comparatively friendly towards the New Mexican settlements thereafter.
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