near what is now Pilar, New Mexico. Background By the mid-1800s tensions between the Spanish, multiple Native American nations and westward expanding United States settlers erupted as all sought and laid claim to land in the southwest. Diseases to which Native Americans had no immunity "decimated" their tribes, creating greater pressure for their lands to be taken from them. As tensions of Native Americans grew and numerous attempts to relocate them from their traditional hunting and gathering land and sacred homelands, the Jicarilla became increasingly hostile in their efforts to protect their lands. The United States military developed a defense system of forts and troops to restrict attacks on westward travelers. Fort Union was established, in part, to provide protection from the Jicarillas. The disruption and "mutual incomprehensions" of one another's culture led to warfare among the Spanish, Native American nations and Americans. Leo E. Oliva, author of Fort Union and the Frontier Army in the Southwest, notes that: "The three cultural groups in the Southwest had different concepts of family life, personal values, social relations, religion, uses and ownership of land and other property, how best to obtain the provisions of life, and warfare." Fort Union was established by Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner who ordered Major James Henry Carleton's Company K 1st Dragoons on August 2, 1851 to protect of westward travelers between Missouri and New Mexico Territory on the Santa Fe Trail. New Mexico Territory's Governor William Carr Lane made treaties with the Jicarilla and other Native American tribes of New Mexico to relocate to reservations and peacefully take up agriculture on new lands and in agreed for payments to recompense for loss of access to their hunting, gathering and sacred homeland. The United States government, however, pulled the funding for this agreement, betraying the Native American tribal members. Further complicating the situation, all the crops planted by the tribal members failed and the people continued raiding for survival. Battle and aftermath In March 1854 Lobo Blanco, a Jicarilla chief, led a band of 30 warriors to raid the horse herd of a contractor for Fort Union; a detachment of 2nd U.S. Dragoons, led by Lieutenant David Bell, pursued the raiders, engaging a fight on the Canadian River and killing many of them, including the chief, who was repeatedly wounded and finally killed by crushing him under a boulder (March 4). In late March, Maj. George A. Blake,