Chouteau's fort on the Canadian was considered to be in Comanche territory. Shortly after the treaty with the Kiowa in 1837, he established what they regard as the first trading post within their own country, on the west bank of Cache creek, about 3 miles below the present Fort Sill, Oklahoma. _Tomé-te_ (Thomas?) is the name by which the Kiowa remember the trader in charge, who, however, did not remain long. Another store was established nearly on the same ground by William Madison (_Sénpo-zédalbe_, "Terrible-beard") in 1869, after the tribes had been assigned to a reservation. In 1844, William Bent began building trading posts on the South Canadian, in the Texas panhandle, near the principal Kiowa trails. They also traded extensively at various points on the Arkansas until their final removal to Indian Territory. FIRST VISIT TO FORT GIBSON With the treaty of 1837 and the building of the first trading post in their country, the modern history of the Kiowa may be said to have fairly begun. Their first introduction to American civilization was in 1834, when Dohásän and the other chiefs accompanied the troops back to Fort Gibson, and again in 1837 when they went to the same place for the purpose of making the treaty. Soon afterward arrangements were made by Colonel Chouteau to have a delegation of Kiowa, Comanche, and their associated tribes visit Washington and other eastern cities. A party of chiefs visited Fort Gibson for this purpose in the summer of 1839, but Colonel Chouteau having died during the previous winter, and the season being then far advanced, it was deemed best to abandon the trip, and accordingly they were given some presents and returned to their homes (_Report, 1_). SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC OF 1839-40--PEACE WITH THE CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO In the winter of 1839-40 the Kiowa again suffered from the smallpox, which had broken out in the north in the summer of 1837, nearly exterminating the Mandan, and then swept the whole plains to the gulf. In 1840 they made peace with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, with whom they have ever since been on terms of intimate friendship (see the calendar). They had already made peace with the Dakota, so that they were now on good terms with all the tribes of the plains excepting the Pawnee and Tonkawa, who seem always to have been outlawed tribes, without friends or allies. TEXAN SANTA FÉ EXPEDITION