Jose Tafoya

Jose Piedad Tafoya (1834 - ca. 1913), sometimes called the Prince of the Comancheros, was one of the more notable traders from New Mexico who traveled throughout the Southern Great Plains exchanging goods with the Comanches and their allies the Kiowa for stolen horses, cattle, and sometimes human captives. In the 1850s, he operated a sheep ranch in San Miguel County, New Mexico. In the 1870s, he began sheep herding in Texas. Some believe that this story is mythical. In 1879, he accompanied Lt. John L. Bullis on an expedition into southern New Mexico in pursuit of a band of marauding Lipan and Mescalero Apaches.

By the 1880s, he had left Texas and was once again ranching sheep in New Mexico.