I turn 80 today and my brother gave me this 28mm miniature for my Spanish versus Comanche games. I assume the cross is wooden and painted; that much silver would be very heavy and worth a fortune! But it occurs to me to ask what the Comanche reaction and response was to the Crucifixion? They were in contact with the Church for a long time, both in trade and in war. Preaching the Cross to warriors who sometimes tortured captives must have been interesting??
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GROK:
Happy 80th birthday! That miniature is a striking piece—Brother John with the big cross (wooden stock, painted to look pale/metallic) and the sword, ready for the tabletop. It captures the dual Spanish frontier reality of the cross and the sword.
On the historical question: direct, detailed accounts of Comanche reactions specifically to the doctrine of the Crucifixion (God incarnate suffering and dying as redemptive sacrifice) are sparse. Contact with the Church was real and prolonged—through raids, trade, captives, diplomacy, and occasional mission attempts—but the dominant response during the height of Comanche power was practical resistance rather than theological engagement. The Cross was primarily encountered as a symbol of Spanish colonial presence and claims.
The clearest flashpoint: San Sabá, 1758
Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá (near present-day Menard, Texas) was founded in 1757 by Franciscans for the Lipan Apaches. The Lipans, under pressure from Comanches and their allies, had encouraged the Spanish outpost as a buffer. On 16 March 1758, roughly 2,000 Comanches, Wichitas/Taovayas, Tonkawas, and others attacked. They killed two priests—Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros and Fray José de Santiesteban—along with several others, looted, burned the stockade and buildings, destroyed religious images and statues, and desecrated the bodies (accounts mention scalping, beheading, and at least one headless corpse placed on or near the altar).
Spanish sources framed the priests as martyrs. From the Comanche side, the attack targeted a Spanish-Apache alliance that threatened their control of the southern plains and their access to horses, trade, and territory. Religious symbols were destroyed as part of wrecking the Spanish installation, not necessarily from a focused rejection of Christian theology. The nearby presidio was not taken, and a later Spanish punitive expedition was defeated. This event marked a major shift: Comanche power checked Spanish expansion in central Texas for decades.
Later (1785–1786) peace treaties brought trade and relative coexistence, especially with New Mexico, without large-scale conversion. Comanches remained nomadic, horse-based bison hunters and raiders; the mission model of settled agriculture, monogamy, and obedience to priests did not appeal.
Cultural and religious mismatch
Traditional Comanche religion was largely individualistic. Power (puha or medicine) came from personal vision quests and guardian spirits associated with animals, rocks, the sun, and the earth. There was no centralized priesthood or fixed dogma equivalent to Christian orthodoxy. Wallace and Hoebel's classic The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains describes a society in which every person could seek and interpret supernatural power, with limited large-scale ceremonies compared to some other Plains groups.
Warrior values—bravery, horsemanship, successful raiding, status through generosity and captives—clashed with Christian emphases on humility, settled life, and redemptive suffering. Historians such as Walter Prescott Webb noted that the "wild Comanche" found the war-whoop and bow more congenial than vespers and the holy cross. Preaching a God who allowed (or chose) death by torture and execution to people who used captivity and sometimes ritualized violence as tools of status, revenge, and terror created a deep cultural disconnect. The idea of power residing in voluntary weakness or sacrificial death was alien to a system that prized personal invulnerability, success in battle, and the ability to inspire fear.
Symbolic and later responses
There is evidence that some Christian objects (crucifixes, books with images of Jesus carrying the cross) were taken as powerful "medicine" items rather than as signs of doctrinal acceptance. Visual similarities—long hair, flowing robes—could make the figure of Jesus resonate with indigenous ideas of power. Captives sometimes fully integrated into Comanche society (the famous "Little Spaniard" / Jesús Sánchez painted by George Catlin is one example).
After military defeat and confinement to reservations in the 1870s, engagement increased. Some Comanches adopted Christianity (various denominations), composed hymns in the Comanche language, and participated in syncretic forms. The Native American Church (peyote religion), which spread strongly among Comanches and neighbors, incorporates Jesus and Christian elements alongside traditional practices. Figures like Quanah Parker showed pragmatic respect for Christianity while retaining multiple wives and traditional orientations. Full, exclusive conversion remained limited compared with some other groups; many blended traditions.
In short: during the period of Comanche dominance, the response to the Cross and the Church was more often arrows, fire, and political calculation than open reception of the Crucifixion's message. The preaching of redemptive suffering to a warrior society that practiced (and sometimes ritualized) the torture of captives was, as you put it, interesting—and largely unsuccessful until the balance of power shifted. The miniature, with both cross and sword, is a good emblem of that frontier reality.
Enjoy the games—and again, many happy returns on the birthday.
looks at a fast-assembly naval kit for the Age of Sail.
