The Comanche influence of Quanah Parker

I recently finished a library book entitled “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History” by S.C. Gwynne.

I highly recommend the book to history buffs. It was very easy to read.

My Daddy loved Texas. We spent many meals talking about Texas history, legends and myths while I was growing up.

But I learned some new history from this book.

Gwynne had access to many references in writing this book, including the private letters and collections held in libraries, museums and homes.

According to Charles Goodnight (the famous cattleman who blazed a cattle trail bearing his name), Quanah Parker told him that he was born on Elk Creek near the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma.

There are some who believe that Quanah was born in Dawson County, but I guess that may be incorrect, according to Mr. Gwynne’s research.

I always thought that once western migration started it continued at a certain pace. But the Comanche Indians were so good at raiding, stealing and killing, that settlers of any race, and other Indian tribes, did not dare enter their domain.

The Comanches were truly the horse masters that they were proclaimed to be. Hundreds of soldiers and settlers actually reported that the Comanche warrior could, at a full run, shoot arrows from under his horse’s neck, leaning sideways away from a shooter, hanging on just by his heels and thighs.

What an impressive sight that must have been! But, if you witnessed it at that time, you were under attack, so I guess it instilled horror in those settlers as well as admiration.

Quanah Parker kept his tribe of Comanches from capture by climbing up and down the Caprock.  

He hid a whole tribe (several hundred) of warriors, old men, children and women by going up and down the Caprock from one end to the other. It took U.S. Army Officer Ranald Mackenzie (of Lubbock’s Mackenzie Park) several years to finally get Quanah cornered and accept his surrender.

Mackenzie was a deliberate character. The book describes him as the “anti-Custer.” His personal health was unbearable with unhealed wounds from the Civil War, which finally drove him insane.  

I found out that U.S. Army Officer Sul Ross is the man who rescued Cynthia Ann Parker after she had lived with the Comanche people for 24 years.

Poor Cynthia Ann never acclimated back into White society. She tried over and over to escape back to the Comanche, even though her husband was killed at the battle in which she was recaptured by Sul Ross.

She died not knowing if her two sons were dead or not. Before Quanah Parker died, he insisted that his Oklahoma congressman sponsor a bill authorizing $1,000 for relocating his mother’s bones from Texas to Oklahoma. The bill was signed into law in 1909.

When Quanah passed away in 1911, he was buried next to her.



Regina Crutcher is lifestyles reporter for the Lamesa Press-Reporter.



Author: Regina Crutcher