In the early 18th century, the Plains Apache lived around the upper Missouri River and were closely connected to the Kiowa people
In the early 18th century, the Plains Apache lived around the upper Missouri River and were closely connected to the Kiowa people . They were ethnically different and spoke a different language. Plains Apache entered this alliance with the Kiowa for mutual protection against hostile tribes. It is recorded that many Kiowa Apache did not learn the Kiowa language, preferring to communicate with their allies using the sophisticated Plains Indian Sign Language, at which the Kiowa were past masters (having probably devised much of the system). Even before contact with Europeans, their numbers were never large, and in 1780 their population was estimated at 400. The Kiowa Apache and Kiowa had migrated into the Southern Plains sometime around 1800. By the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache settled in Western Oklahoma and Kansas. They were forced to move south of the Washita River to the Red River and Western Oklahoma with the Comanche and the Kiowa. The reservation...