to every Cheyenne and Arapaho man. The Comanche welcome to these two tribes, their southern bands numbering perhaps 4,000, was both an acknowledgment that they were formidable rivals and also that the Comanche were short on men and resources to maintain their control over Comancheria. South and southeast of Comancheria were the fast-growing Anglo-American communities in the Mexican territory of Texas. In the 1820s and 1830s most Comanche raids were in the southern parts of Texas and affected the largely Hispanic population around San Antonio, Laredo and Goliad. After the Texas Revolution asserting independence from Mexico in 1836, the Comanche had to deal with the Republic of Texas. Texas's first President, Sam Houston, was knowledgeable about Indians and favored a policy of accommodation with the Comanche. Continued Comanche raids led to the election in 1838 of Mirabeau B. Lamar who favored a more aggressive approach. The massacre of 12 Comanche chiefs attending a peace conference in San Antonio in March 1840 set off a series of bloody reprisals and battles. Hundreds of Comanches descended upon and destroyed the towns of Victoria and Linnville in 1840. Although the Texans demonstrated they could defeat the Comanche at the Battle of Plum Creek, military campaigns emptied their treasury in what became the Texas–Indian Wars, and Texas became more accommodating. In 1844, the Texans and the Comanches came to an agreement which recognized Comanche lands and left Comancheria intact. The agreements with the United States and neighboring tribes, as well as the hiatus in the struggle with Texas, freed up the Comanche to make unrestrained war on the Mexican provinces south of the Rio Grande. The 1830s demonstrated that the Texans, the United States, and neighboring tribes all had the ability to invade Comancheria and attack the Comanche homeland; Mexico, by contrast, was rich in horses and unable to counterattack due to distance and the fact that, after 1836, any Mexican military expedition against Comanches would have had to pass through Texas, a republic whose independence Mexico did not recognize. In attacking Mexico, the Comanche seemed motivated by opportunity, economics and revenge – their animosity toward non-Comanches sharpened by decades of war and reprisals. Thus, their raids on Mexico became increasingly bloody and destructive. Neighboring peoples To the west, southwest and southeast of the Comancheria stretched the vast territories of the various hostile Apache groups, partially overlapping and forming a kind of no man's