The availability of more and better food translated into an explosive population growth. Numbering between ten and fifteen thousand at midcentury, the Comanches may have tripled their population during the next three decades. In 1773, Gaignard learned, either from Taovayas or from Comanches themselves, that the Comanches “comprise fully four thousand warriors.” Assuming that warriors made up half of the total male population and that the Comanches had more or less balanced gender ratio, Gaignard’s account suggests a total Comanche population of sixteen thousand.
