Quanah Parker
written by: Encyclopedia Britannica
revised by: April Smith
revised by: April Smith
Quanah was the son of Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman captured by the Comanches as a child. Quanah later added his mother’s surname to his given name. In 1860 Texas Rangersattacked an Indian encampment on Pease River, killing Nocona and capturing Cynthia Ann and the couple’s young daughter, Prairie Flower. Possibly hoping to protect his father’s reputation, Quanah later insisted that he and Nocona were not there, but statements by eyewitnesses, including his mother, refute that assertion. Tall and muscular, Quanah became a full warrior at age 15. A series of raids established his reputation as an aggressive and fearless fighter, and he became a war chief at a relatively young age.
Quanah moved between several Comanche bands before joining the fierce Kwahadi—particularly bitter enemies of the hunters who had appropriated their best land on the Texas frontier and who were decimating the buffalo herds. In order to stem the onslaught of Comanche attacks on settlers and travelers, the U.S. government assigned the Indians to reservations in 1867. Quanah and his band, however, refused to cooperate and continued their raids. Attempts by the U.S. military to locate them were unsuccessful. In June 1874 Quanah and Isa-tai, a medicine man who claimed to have a potion that would protect the Indians from bullets, gathered 250–700 warriors from among the Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa and attacked about 30 white buffalo hunters quartered at Adobe Walls, Texas. Although the raid was a failure for the Native Americans—a saloon owner had allegedly been warned of the attack—the U.S. military retaliated in force in what became known as the Red River War. Quanah’s group held out on the Staked Plains for almost a year before he finally surrendered at Fort Sill.
Eventually agreeing to settle on the reservation in southwestern Oklahoma, Quanah persuaded other Comanche bands to conform. He soon became known as the principal chief of all Comanche, a position that had never existed. During the next three decades he was the main interpreter of white civilization to his people, encouraging education and agriculture, advocating on behalf of the Comanche, and becoming a successful businessman. Quanah also maintained elements of his own Indian culture, including polygamy, and he played a major role in creating a peyote religion that spread from the Comanche to other tribes. A national figure, he developed friendships with numerous notable men, including Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who invited Quanah to his inauguration in 1905. Shortly thereafter Roosevelt visited Quanah at the chief’s home, a 10-room residence known as Star House, in Cache, Okla.
After his death in 1911, Quanah was buried next to his mother, whose assimilation back into white civilization had been difficult. Her repeated attempts to rejoin the Comanche had been blocked by her white family, and in 1864 Prairie Flower died. Cynthia Ann reportedly starved herself to death in 1870.
Quanah moved between several Comanche bands before joining the fierce Kwahadi—particularly bitter enemies of the hunters who had appropriated their best land on the Texas frontier and who were decimating the buffalo herds. In order to stem the onslaught of Comanche attacks on settlers and travelers, the U.S. government assigned the Indians to reservations in 1867. Quanah and his band, however, refused to cooperate and continued their raids. Attempts by the U.S. military to locate them were unsuccessful. In June 1874 Quanah and Isa-tai, a medicine man who claimed to have a potion that would protect the Indians from bullets, gathered 250–700 warriors from among the Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa and attacked about 30 white buffalo hunters quartered at Adobe Walls, Texas. Although the raid was a failure for the Native Americans—a saloon owner had allegedly been warned of the attack—the U.S. military retaliated in force in what became known as the Red River War. Quanah’s group held out on the Staked Plains for almost a year before he finally surrendered at Fort Sill.
Eventually agreeing to settle on the reservation in southwestern Oklahoma, Quanah persuaded other Comanche bands to conform. He soon became known as the principal chief of all Comanche, a position that had never existed. During the next three decades he was the main interpreter of white civilization to his people, encouraging education and agriculture, advocating on behalf of the Comanche, and becoming a successful businessman. Quanah also maintained elements of his own Indian culture, including polygamy, and he played a major role in creating a peyote religion that spread from the Comanche to other tribes. A national figure, he developed friendships with numerous notable men, including Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who invited Quanah to his inauguration in 1905. Shortly thereafter Roosevelt visited Quanah at the chief’s home, a 10-room residence known as Star House, in Cache, Okla.
After his death in 1911, Quanah was buried next to his mother, whose assimilation back into white civilization had been difficult. Her repeated attempts to rejoin the Comanche had been blocked by her white family, and in 1864 Prairie Flower died. Cynthia Ann reportedly starved herself to death in 1870.
