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 Texas Legends April 03, 2006 8:46 AM



PARKER, CYNTHIA ANN (ca. 1825-ca. 1871). Cynthia Ann Parker, a captive of the Comanches, was born to Lucy (Duty) and Silas M. Parkerqv in Crawford County, Illinois. According to the 1870 census of Anderson County she would have been born between June 2, 1824, and May 31, 1825. When she was nine or ten her family moved to Central Texas and built Fort Parker on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. On May 19, 1836, a large force of Comanche warriors accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies attacked the fort and killed several of its inhabitants. During the raid the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann. The other four were eventually released, but Cynthia remained with the Indians for almost twenty-five years, forgot white ways, and became thoroughly Comanche. It is said that in the mid-1840s her brother, John Parker,qv who had been captured with her, asked her to return to their white family, but she refused, explaining that she loved her husband and children too much to leave them. She is also said to have rejected Indian trader Victor Rose's invitation to accompany him back to white settlements a few years later, though the story of the invitation may be apocryphal.
In the last years of Cynthia Ann's life she never saw her Indian family, the only family she really knew. But she was a true pioneer of the American West, whose legacy was carried on by her son Quanah. Serving as a link between whites and Comanches, Quanah Parker became the most influential Comanche leader of the reservation era.
Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Quahadi Comanche Indians. Parker was the son of Comanche Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker.
Quanah's life story has become the stuff of Texas lore and legend. It begins in 1836 with the abduction of Cynthia Ann Parker, the young white girl who would one day become a Comanche wife and mother, who would later be recaptured by Texas Rangers, and who would die hopeless, unable either to see her Indian sons or to again become "white." It ends in 1911 with Quanah Parker—wealthy rancher, successful businessman, deputy sheriff—buried in full Comanche regalia.
Cynthia Ann would be reburied next to Quanah, mother and son rejoined at last after more than 50 years. But as its final irony, this essentially Texas story ends in an Oklahoma cemetery. In the end, Texas would not be Indian territory, not even for Quanah Parker.

Annual Cynthia Ann Parker Days Celebration is held in May in Crowell, Texas. 817-655-3330.







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 April 03, 2006 9:45 AM

Quanah Parker, last war chief of the Quahadi Comanche.

Quanah's life story has become the stuff of Texas lore and legend. It begins in 1836 with the abduction of Cynthia Ann Parker, the young white girl who would one day become a Comanche wife and mother, who would later be recaptured by Texas Rangers, and who would die hopeless, unable either to see her Indian sons or to again become "white." It ends in 1911 with Quanah Parker—wealthy rancher, successful businessman, deputy sheriff—buried in full Comanche regalia.

Cynthia Ann would be reburied next to Quanah, mother and son rejoined at last after more than 50 years. But as its final irony, this essentially Texas story ends in an Oklahoma cemetery. In the end, Texas would not be Indian territory, not even for Quanah Parker.

The mythic dimensions of Quanah's story obscure the hard reality of the war along the Texas frontier. It was a conflict waged brutally and relentlessly, with "civilians" on both sides targeted as readily as soldiers and warriors, no quarter expected and none given.

For longer than any Comanche could remember, the summer had been a time of eager anticipation. It was the time when preparations would begin for the great communal bison hunts—when whole villages would pack their tipis, ride out from the sheltering canyons of the Caprock, and find the great beasts that sustained the Comanche way of life.

But not this time.
Quanah rode to a mesa, where he saw a wolf come toward him, howl and trot away to the northeast. Overhead, an eagle "glided lazily and then whipped his wings in the direction of Fort Sill," in the words of Jacob Sturm.



This was a sign, Quanah thought, and on June 2, 1875, he and his band surrendered at Fort Sill in present-day Oklahoma.
Quahadi chief Quanah Parker led some 400 of the war-weary Comanche people into Fort Sill, Indian Territory.The last band to surrender in the South Plains war of 1874-1875. This time, they carried only a few possessions on their trek. This time, they would give up their weapons and their remaining ponies. It was their last act as The People they had been.

Parker was influential in the spread of Christian peyotism among the Plains Indians. He was the first to integrate highly ritualized Christian elements with the Indians' traditional use of peyote, and insisted that women not be excluded from such ceremonies. The town of Quanah, Texas -- settled in 1884 and named for Quanah Parker -- is the seat of Hardeman County, in North Texas.

Quanah was traveling the "white man's road," but he did it his way. He refused to give up polygamy, much to the reservation agents' chagrin. Reservation agents being political appointees of the Federal Government, their main concern was to destroy all vestiges of Native American life and replace their culture with that of theirs. Quanah Parker negotiated grazing rights with Texas cattlemen, and invested in a railroad. He learned English, became a reservation judge, lobbied Congress and pleaded the cause of the Comanche Nation. Among his friends were cattleman Charles Goodnight and President Theodore Roosevelt. He considered himself a man who tried to do right both to the people of his tribe and to his "pale-faced friends".

It wasn't easy. Mackenzie appointed Quanah Parker as the chief of the Comanche shortly after his surrender, but the older chiefs resented Parker’s youth, and his white blood in particular." And in 1892, when Quanah Parker signed the Jerome Agreement that broke up the reservation, the Comanche were split into two factions: (1). those who realized that all that could be done had been one for their nation; and (2). those who blamed Chief Parker for selling their country."

For his courage, integrity and tremendous insight, Quanah Parker’s life tells the story of one of America's greatest leaders and a true Texas Hero.


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anonymous  April 03, 2006 8:51 PM

wow!! Cynthia was an amazing woman, thank you for posting this Ann*
  never heard of it before!!
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 April 03, 2006 9:14 PM

my great-great grandmother was a comanche woman. i grew up hearing all the legends. my mothers family took great pride in their native american hertiage, even when it was not acceptable. my great grandfather was never called a 'bred' or his father would have "beat the tar out of em". but all of that is for another post.
thanks for reading and i am glad you enjoyed it. lots of great legends and lores from around these parts lol
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 May 06, 2006 12:11 AM

That was very interesting, thanks so much for posting  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 06, 2006 5:57 AM

my grandmother (1/4 comanche) with my two aunts.


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 May 09, 2006 7:46 AM

A descendent of Quanah Parker, an attorney in West Texas, still riding on that name!  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
NEW LEGEND Thursday, 4:10 PM

ARTIST FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE IN TEXAS, AND EXPOSES THE JUSTICE SYSTEM FAILURE:

INTERNATIONAL ABDUCTION WITH MURDER 4:04 PM

SEBASTIAN PAVON CUELLAR, A NEW BORN CHILD WAS KIDNAPPED BY SAMANTHA LOWRY AND TRISTAN NIND, FOLLOWED BY THE MURDER OF HIS GRAND FATHER.

FOLLOW THE EVENTS: http://highcourtofjustice.org/JUSTICE_HEDLEY.html

Submitted by www.Kidnapped.tv helping children and parents recover their children from abuse and kidnapping

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