1840 battle of the Texas–Indian wars
The Council House Fight, often referred to as the Council House Massacre, was a fight between soldiers and officials of the Republic of Texas and a delegation of Comanche chiefs during a peace conference in San Antonio on March 19, 1840. About 35 Comanche men and women under chief, Mukwooru (aka Muguara) represented just a fraction of the Penateka band of the southern portion of the Comanche tribe. He knew he had no authority to speak for the Southern tribes as a whole and thus, any discussions of peace would be simply a farce. However, if Mukwooru could re-establish a lucrative trade with the San Antonian's perhaps a peace, by proxy, could be established. Just as the Comanche had done had been done for centuries in San Antonio, Santa Fe and along the Rio Grande River. They would rob one settlement and then sell to the other.
On March Chief Muguara brought in some trade articles and horses as well as an abused and tortured 14-year captive white girl named Matilda Lockhart that they had kidnapped and hoped that they would fetch a better price for her ransom, than what they received from nine year old, James Putnam/Putman just two weeks before. If the price was right, they may soon deliver over more captives.
The remainder of the Penateka Comanche were, at the time, at Enchanted Rock with thirteen other captives that they planned to sell one by one to fetch better prices.
The Southern Comanche had broken the 1835 as well as the 1838 treaty traveling hundreds of miles down the Colorado River and Guadalupe Rivers into the Texas settlements to steal horses and abduct children and had no intention of stopping this lucrative market economy that gave their young men a purpose. The various bands of the Southern Comanche had about thirty white captives and sixty Mexican captives, all abducted in recent raids.
The council at the courthouse in San Antonio began when the 30 Comanche men were invited into a courthouse in downtown San Antonio, on the east side of the square east of San Fernando Cathedral, facing it. The men brought their women who concealed several tomahawks under the blankets they held. The men left their rifles with their horse handlers out front and unstrung their bows and walked in as a procession and sat on the floor facing the table of Texian representative including judges and Colonels. Captive Matilda Lockhart was delivered over, and when the other captives were not, and when they asked for a better price, the Texans took the Comanche delegation as hostages for a forced prisoner exchange. Soldiers from a nearby building entered the premises, the Comanche began to stab the Texans. The council ended with 12 Comanche men shot to death inside the Council House and 23 others killed outside. Two elderly men and two dozen women were held captive in order to obtain an exchange for the remaining Texan children held by the Comanche.
Background.
On May 28, 1838, the second peace treaty with the Penateka Band of the Southern Comanche tribe was ratified between the Republic of Texas and dozens of headmen of the Penetaka band of Comanche under principal chiefs, Mukwooru, Muestyad and Muhy. Article 10 of the treaty required that the Comanche stop their hundred mile long raids down the Colorado River and put an end to their murdering defenseless settlers and stealing their horses. Any and all disputes between the parties, all were to be resolved by appointed representatives of the chiefs and the President of Texas.
On October 20, 1838, a party of surveyors under Lapham and Jones were attacked by a large war party of 100 Comanche warriors four miles north of San Antonio. General Richard G. Dunlap and Captain Cage went out to relieve the men with a handful of San Antonians and were chased back. Cage was killed and the general escaped with a lance wound and most of the remainder returned with arrow wounds. Eleven Texians were buried two days later in a mass grave. Before the year was over, the Killough, Wood, Morgan, Marlin and Tippins Families were all murdered in their homes.
In January 1839 Lipan scouts, who had many kidnapped women and children among the Comanche brought word of a Comanche encampment on the outskirts of the settlements on the San Saba River. No word of how many lodges were in the village. Miss Parker, Webster, Matilda Lockhart, Warren Lyons, Thomas Pierce and several others were still captive among them as were scores Tonkawa women and children. On February 12 a combined party of 55 Texan farmers and allied Indians under chief Flacco attacked a Comanche village. Mr. Lockhart, father of the captive Matilda joined the party in an attempt to rescue her.
In response, the Comanche murdered the widow, Mrs. Coleman and her five orphaned children near present day, Austin.
Jose Franciso Ruiz, who lived among the Comanche for eight years wrote that, "among them they had hundreds of prisoners of both sexes, estimating the total being over 900 among the nation, which did not include those who had successfully made their escape...The worst treatment were those of the young girls as he would write, “Their lot [disposition] is most pitiful.”
In an attempt to prevent further raids, the fledgling Texas government funded volunteers farmers to patrol the perimeters of the settlements. In May, 1839, Captain John Bird and 30 Texas Rangers skirmished with Comanche chief Buffalo Hump at what is now Bird's Creek in present day, Temple known as Bird's Creek Indian Fight. Many Indians were killed. In response, the large party of Comanche rode to San Antonio and challenged the citizens to come out and fight, then left with 240 horses.
In June 1839, just months before a treaty council was arranged, twelve Mexicans and herders were slain by Comanche in the neighboring ranches about San Antonio, and just a few months before, the Comanche came within the edge of town, killed two Mexicans and stole a young boy, then killed a German and a Mexican two days later. In response, Col. Henry Wax Karnes, with Col. Juan N. Sequin led an expedition against the attackers with a force of 108 volunteers and friendly Indians. Captive Matilda Lockhart who was captive among the Comanche stated the Comanche lost 23 men in that fight.
In September 1839, the Comanche encountered the Webster wagon train consisting of 16 travelers, massacred all except for Dolly Webster who was abducted. In captivity, she met with Thomas Pierce (10), a boy whose family was also massacred by the Comanche in front his eyes. Because the Comanche had lost their relationship with the Mexicans of San Antonio, the Penateka band had no means of obtaining gunpowder. They asked Mrs. Webster to show them how to make it but she was no help. The Peneteka were desperate to obtain more and thus sent, chief, Mukwooru into San Antonio with a captive in order to obtain more.
The government of Texas had no solution to the Comanche lightning, hit and run raids, and just like the Mexicans, and Spanish before them, they hoped that gifts in the form of tribute would buy them safety from kidnapping, murder and theft. Already, Texans had between 1823 and 1839, buried three hundred and fifty civilians, murdered by Indians of all tribes, Kickapoo, Keechi, Tawakani, Waco, Cherokee and Caddo most recently. Major Chouteau, Indian Agent for the Creek at Camp Holmes thought the number of white captives abducted from Texas and held captive by the various tribes north of Red River as between forty and fifty. By the time of the Council House Fight, an estimated thirty-five white children had been kidnapped by Comanche alone with at least 13 of them by the Peneteka band. Much mistrust with existed between the two nations. As one contemporary wrote of the proposed treaty:
"This was not the first time the Comanches had feigned friendship and expressed a desire to cease hostilities towards the whites in order to throw the settlers off their guard so that they might more effectually raid the country, commit murders and then suddenly return to their mountain homes, carrying into captivity women and children and driving off all the horses they could conveniently carry with them. Our people along the border settlements had suffered so much at the hands of the red devils for the last four or five years previous that the government was disposed to give the Comanches another trail and thus test their pretended desire for peace.” 
Towards the end of February 1840, a party of three hundred Penateka Comanche camped very near Mission San Jose, about six miles from San Antonio. Captain Howard was in a camp nearby and sent some Mexican interpreters on horseback to demand the release of recently kidnapped Texans or, they must prepare for a fight. Mukwooru and his band had not come to fight and as a show of faith brought forth a white captive, James Putnam (9) for which they expected a ransom. Colonel Henry Wax Karnes provided remuneration, but this was apparently not enough as during the council, they complained of the price. The Comanche were told that if they brought in all the white captives that were known to have recently abducted, terms of peace could be arranged. The kidnappers agreed to meet during the next moon. James Putnam relayed to Howard that his sister, Rhoda had been killed by the Comanche during her captivity, along with her Indian master and his principal wife after his death, a ritual typical of early native Americans in order that they serve him in the afterlife.
Just two years before, in 1838, the Putnam children were picking pecans along the Guadalupe River with a neighbor, Matilda Lockhart (13) when Comanche warriors abducted them. Matilda, Rhoda Putnam (14), and her younger siblings James (7) Elizabeth (5) and Lucy (2) were tied to horses and swept away to the north.
The next full moon occurred in March and on the 19th, Chief Mukwooru, a Penetaka chief and close kin to Yellow Wolf and Buffalo Hump led 65 Comanches, including women and children, to San Antonio for peace talks.
Revenge of Mathilda Lockhart.
On March 19, chief Mukwooru of the Penateka band of the Southern Comanche tribe led 65 Comanches into San Antonio and through the streets to the downtown courthouse passing the glares and sneers of scores of Mexican farmers and ranchers along the streets, the majority who had lost their children and grand children during a century of Comanche raids. As was tradition among native peace talks, Mukwooru brought with him his headmen, some of their wives and children as well as two elderly headmen. All of the men had knives and quivers filled with arrows but their bows were unstrung. In case of treachery, they had their wives hide secret tomahawks between their blankets.
Buffalo Hump, still reeling from the Bird Fight, and Yellow Wolf, and Santa Anna, did not attend and remained at Enchanted Rock with Dolly Webster and other captives. The peace talks were doomed to fail as none of the other war chiefs were present. All of the bands, though claiming independence and autonomy were celebrating with games at a festival at Enchanted Rock as captive Dolly Webster would later recount. But perhaps this would be the beginning of another larger treaty with the entire band of Penateka which would lead to them acquiring more gunpowder and clothing.
In front of the San Antonio courthouse, the Comanche dismounted. Thirty two of the 65 held the horses for the 33 that walked inside. As shown in the adjacent sketch, it was a one-story stone building with adjoining the jail on the corner of Main Plaza and Calabosa (Market) Street. The delegates walked down the hallway and entered a large court room.
Outside, Judge Thompson approached some of the Comanche boys and spent the morning playing target practice with them, setting up silver coins on a wood fence some distance away while the children showed off their skills. 
The Comanche entered the courthouse with only one captive, fourteen year old, Matilda Lockhart. Before she was let go, the Indians addressed the court that the little ransom paid for the Putnam boy two weeks before would be made up with this transaction. The captive was handed to Mary Maverick, who