Iron Jacket

Iron Jacket
Puhihwikwasu'u
Quahadi Comanche leader
In office
1820–1850
Personal details
Bornc. 1790
Comancheria
DiedMay 12, 1858
Little Robe Creek, Indian Territory (now Ellis County, Oklahoma)
Cause of deathGunshot wound
ChildrenPeta Nocona
Known for
  • Comanche leader who wore a Spanish coat of mail into battle
  • Medicine man whom the Comanches considered as having the power to blow bullets aside with his breath
  • 1820–1850 led the Quahadi Comanche tribe during the Texas–Indian wars
  • Grandfather of the last Comanche chief, Quanah Parker

Iron Jacket (Comanche: Puhihwikwasu'u, lit. 'metal shirt'; born c. 1790 – died 1858) was a Native American War Chief and Chief of the Quahadi band of Comanche Indians.[1]

Iron Jacket was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man whom the Comanche believed had the power to blow bullets aside with his breath. His name probably resulted from his habit of wearing a Spanish coat of scale mail into battle, which protected him from most light weapons fire.[1][page needed]

On May 12, 1858, the jacket (likely inherited from his ancestors) failed to protect him, and he was killed on the bank of the Little Robe Creek tributary of the South Canadian River in the Battle of Little Robe Creek where his band of Quahadi Comanches fought a combined force of Texas Rangers and Brazos Reservation Indians led by John S. Ford, Shapley Prince Ross (the father of Lawrence Sullivan Ross), and Plácido, a Tonkawa chief.[2]

  1. ^ a b Fehrenbach, T. R. (1974) "Comanches, The Destruction of a People ISBN 0394488563 LCCN 73-20761
  2. ^ Rea, Bob. "Battle of the Antelope Hills". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.