The Comancheros were predominantly-Hispanic (especially Mexican mestizos) merchants who traded with the Comanche tribes of central and northern New Mexico from the 1780s to the mid-19th century. While the Comanche had raided the Rio Grande Valley for horses, corn, and slaves since 1719, Juan Bautista de Anza subdued the Comanche in a 1779-1785 punitive expedition, forcing the Comanche to agree to peace with the Spanish, and leading to the establishment of commerce. From then on, the Comancheros inhabited a shadowy world of commerce between dealers of guns, ammunition, and other forbidden commodities with the local Native Americans, primarily in northeastern New Mexico and in the Palo Duro Canyon region of Texas. Even though the Sioux, Apache, and other Native Americans were quite often provided firearms by the U.S. military, a significant black market emerged that the Comancheros were more than happy to exploit. The Comancheros were known as "the indigent and rude classes of the frontier villages, who collect together several times a year, and launch upon the plains with a few trinkets and trumperies of all kinds, and perhaps a bag of bread or pinole." In the winter of 1874-5, General Ranald S. Mackenzie burned five Comanche camps in the Palo Duro Canyon and destroyed 1,400 horses, forcing the last of the Comanche tribes to surrender. This ended the century-long trade relationship between the Comancheros and the Comanche.
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