December 5, 2012 • 27 mins
In this episode, we tell the story of Cynthia Ann Parker's son, the Comanche war chief Quanah Parker. Quanah led Comanche forces until his defeat at Adobe Walls. He then encouraged his people to settle on the reservation, refusing to sacrifice his culture.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm fair Dowdy and I'm de blaney Chuk Reboarding and
where we left up. Last time, we were talking about
a story from the Old Western Frontier, specifically talking about
(00:24):
Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Kwanta Parker, who was
the last Comanche chief. And um, it's been a sad
story so far, one that we really kicked off with
Cynthia Anne's own kidnapping when she was only nine years old. Yeah,
focusing mostly on her life and what happened after that kidnapping.
She was taken from her Texas family home. She and
(00:47):
her brother and some more of her relatives, and while
most of them were ransomed back, she never surfaced. They
were never able to get her back or to find her,
as she was just sort of off to them even
even hear a word of her until the mid eighteen
forties when reports of her started to pop up, and
(01:09):
soon enough the picture was pretty clear she was alive
and well and was in fact living as a Commanche.
She had been raised by Comanche parents. She eventually went
on to marry a Comanche war chief named Petta Nakana,
who was interestingly also her captor um and had two
(01:31):
sons with him, Kwana and Peanut, and a daughter named
Prairie Flower. And Um by all accounts, seemed to be
completely content with her life, which was clearly something that
disturbed the other settlers. They did sort of learn of
her whereabouts and tried to ransom her back like they
did the other relatives. And she would not go. No,
(01:51):
she wouldn't go. And her people said, you cannot, You'd
have to kill us. You cannot take her. We will
not ransom her for any sum um. And you know,
I would imagine that would be relieving to hear that
she was alive to her family, But most people were
were concerned about the news because here was this woman,
you know, she had been kidnapped as a child, and
(02:13):
she was happy in her new life. She was happy
living among the Comanche. She had no wish to return
to her life with the settlers. So where we left off, specifically, though,
Cynthia Anne was going back, whether she liked it or not.
She had just been recaptured. Yeah, she had been recaptured
(02:34):
and taken back to live with her biological family and
when we saw her last, she was not happy about this.
She was very sad because she felt that her or
she knew in her heart that her husband and her
sons had been killed. Yeah, she believed that they had.
Both both her sons and her husband had been killed
(02:56):
in the raid where she was captured. Um and she
also just knew her her life as a commanche woman
was over. And I mean, aside from believing that her
husband and sons were murdered, she was entirely miserable in
this new situation. She tried to escape repeatedly from her
from her family. And what makes it all the more
(03:18):
sad is that she wasn't allowed to well, she wasn't
allowed to go back to her people, clearly, but she
wasn't allowed to leave or lead a retiring life either.
She was put into the public eye because of course,
she had been a well known person since her kidnapping
at age nine. I mean, she we mentioned in the
last episode, she was even used as a warning. Mother's
(03:41):
would warn their children, don't wander too far from the
house or you might end up like Cynthia Anne. So clearly,
the news of her recapture was huge all over papers nationwide,
and she ended up being celebrated in Austin, but clearly
the crowd intimidated her. The attention frightened her. Was a
woman who had gone through a lot of trauma recently,
(04:02):
and it was almost more like she was being put
on display as some kind of curiosity rather than somebody
who they were genuinely glad to have back. Right, So
she lived with her uncle for a time, and then
with her brother, Silas Parker, and then finally she lived
with her younger sister or Leanna. Neighbors remembered her as
being incredibly helpful during this time. For example, she could
(04:25):
tan hide, she sewed, she chopped wood, she even made
herbal remedies. But they also remembered her as being incredibly sad.
She was said to have slashed herself in a comanche
expression of grief. The moves to different family members just
took her further and further away from the frontier and
deeper into the forest. They would promise that maybe they'd
(04:47):
let her go visit her her family and her friends
at at certain points, but yeah, they were just moving
her further and further away from the country that she
had always lived in. Um prairie flowers seemed to throw
you know, she was obviously just a very young girl
when her mother was recaptured. She grew up learning English studying,
(05:08):
but she unfortunately died in eighteen sixty four of pneumonia.
And after that point, uh, Cynthia Anne really had no
connection left to to her old life and seemed to
spiral um and died a few years later in eighteen seventy,
also possibly of pneumonia or the flu. But um, Like
a lot of the story and a lot of the
(05:30):
stories related to Quanta's life, there are different accounts depending
on the source you look in, and a lot of
sources say that she starved herself to death. Um. So
that's basically the end of Cynthia Ann's story, even though
she does come into play later in Quanta's life. He
remains devoted to his mother and really inspired by by
(05:51):
her story when he's a warrior, but also inspired by
her I don't know her her double capture as a
as a man, and when he's trying to reconcile his
own two sides. So now we're going to kind of
switch from Cynthia Anne's life and look at Quanta and
and his brother. We know, we're not sure exactly. We
talked about this a little bit in the last podcast.
(06:12):
We're not exactly certain what happened to Cynthia Anne's husband,
but we can be pretty sure of what happened to Peanut.
He died of smallpox. And Quanta came out of this
terrible experience. I mean, think about all the things that
happened to him. He was orphaned quite young either way,
no matter which story about what happened to his father,
father died in the raid or whether he died as
(06:33):
Quanta said a couple of years later, right, but he
came out of it a competent warrior. He was strong
and taller than most of his peers at six ft tall.
His first major raid in eighteen sixty eight at age twenty,
was kind of a disaster, though it was an old
style raid where youngsters would make their names by stealing
some horses on these incredible long, sometimes multi year treks
(06:56):
into Mexico, and this one in particular was commanded by
a kai Oa war chief. The whole group almost starved,
They went two days without water twice, and clearly times
were changing. I mean, the Mexican settlements were aggressive and
they were. They weren't able to steal that many horses.
In fact, Quanta arrived back at camp on foot, which
is terribly humiliating. Yeah, I mean, just this, just to
(07:19):
think of this raid um compared to what raids might
have been like in Quanta's father's age, where you could
expect on one of these multi year tracks, uh, you know,
a thousand mile trip or something, of coming back having
made a name for yourself, having amassed a certain amount
of wealth. Horses were the measure of wealth for Comanche too,
(07:42):
you know. That was how you would pay a pay
a dowry and get married. It was. It was the
basis for a lot of their life. So as a
young man, setting yourself up with a lot of horses
was a good way to to start out. But clearly
it wasn't easy pickings anymore. Things we're getting tougher for
the Comanche and Um. Quanta did take part in more
(08:02):
raids that year in Texas, and it's worth noting here
that some sources go out of their way to explain
Quanta didn't participate in what most people would consider war atrocities,
and we went over quite a few of these in
the last episode. But um, the raids where rape isn't
involved murdering children, kidnapping, torturing people, mutilating people, or mutilating
(08:25):
bodies um, which, of course we're a political tactic of
war by the Comanche or by um by various tribes
to to try to force settlers off the land, to
try to scare them so badly. It's not about numbers,
it's about terrifying people into leaving and and reclaiming their
(08:46):
land that way. But a lot of sources seem to
absolve Quanta of of a lot of things like that.
And SD Gwen, the author of Empire of the Summer Moon,
points out that violence was a pretty standard thing for
a young Comanche warrior to participate in as both an
intimidation tactic like I just described, and of course also
(09:07):
an active revenge for captured family members, for murdered family members. Um.
Regardless though, of what Quanta did on these raids specifically,
he did come to prominence in his early twenties after
two fights in particular, and both really show leadership and
resolve more than anything. Yeah, and one his rating party
(09:29):
was attacked and the war chief was killed, and as
we saw in the Jim Booie episode. This usually led
to just complete chaos because the warriors would try to
collect their chief's body, but in this case Quantas stepped
up and shouted new directions. He also challenged a soldier
and what Gwen describes as kind of a joust, and
he got shot in the leg, but he shot his
(09:50):
target also in the shoulder with an arrow, and his
party managed to escape and they elected him their leader
that night. The second incident was in the summer of
eighteen six nine, where his raiding party murdered a man
driving an Oxen team. When a party rode out to
pursue them, Quanta, instead of fleeing, hunkered down in the
(10:12):
bushes and ended up lancing too men and his guys
saw this, it urged them on to continue the fight.
The battle ended up being a draw. I think the
Comanche party ran out of Ammo. But again the party
was really impressed by Quanta's leadership, by his bravery, and
elected him as the leader. So consequently Quanta became of
(10:34):
a leader among his people in an age when most
of his battles were going to be more about survival,
you know, not like the first raid into Mexico. We
talked about they were going to be more about survival
and protecting a way of life than stealing horses or intimidation.
Because by eighteen seventy there were only about four thousand
Comanche left, and only about one thousand who hadn't gone
(10:57):
on the reservation left, so this this or hadn't gone
on yet. So this free life that they were leading
uh was was clearly waning, and the civil wars end
really saw an uptick in the government and military response
to the few free Native Americans who were left in
the West. William to comes to Sherman as General in
(11:19):
chief of the Army was intensely concerned with protecting the
railroad interests out west, ending the Plains Indian Wars, and
really forcing the remaining Native Americans like Quantas Quhati Band
onto reservations. Yes, the Quhati Band, and we described on
the last podcast how the Commanche were broken into these
autonomous bands. They were one that had rejected this treaty
(11:42):
called the Medicine Lodge Treaty in eighteen sixty seven trying
to move the remaining tribes, the remaining bands, onto the reservation.
So clearly they were a target in addition to being
the commanche band with maybe the fiercest reputation, they were
a holdout as well. Um Seguin ominously called the situation
(12:03):
in eighteen seventy one the beginning of the Final Solution,
and it's also right when Kuana was becoming a big
name as a talented young war chief. Even though interestingly,
you might think since Cynthia Anne was such a celebrity
and national celebrity, even though she had passed on by
this point, you might think that he would be connected
(12:25):
to her publicly. But even though his mother's name was
in national papers by this point, their relation wasn't public
until eighteen seventy five, so people were pursuing the son
of a woman they had assuredly heard about. And just
a side note here, Sherman actually came close to death
himself on a tour of the area during this time.
(12:46):
A Kyowa rating party ended up by passing his group
for superstitious reasons, though, and they hit a wagon train
instead and what was called the Salt Creek massacre. So
Sherman knew exactly what what was going on. But the
last real attempt by Kuana and the Quahati to defend
themselves against settlement. Came in June of eighteen seventy four,
(13:10):
along with a man named Issatai, who was a Comanche
warrior and a medicine man who I really wish I
had gotten to read even more about. He sounded like
a pretty fascinating figure. Um he had achieved a certain
amount of unity among the bands, and he, along with
Quanta lad anywhere between two hundred and fifty and seven
hundred Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kyole warriors in an attack at
(13:35):
Adobe Walls, Texas. And I mean, you'd think with numbers
like that there were just about thirty Buffalo hunters inside.
But the attack was a disaster. The buffalo hunters had
these um these rifles with a really long range shot,
and Quanta ended up being pretty badly wounded. Uh, it
didn't go well and the U. S. Army retaliated really
(13:58):
forcefully as well afterwards. Um So, Quanta in the Equati
he was with, managed to hold out for about a
year after that before he finally had to admit that
the fight was over. He surrendered at Fort Sill. He
acknowledged he was the son of Cynthia Anne at this point,
so it's it's eighteen seventy five, and he agreed to
(14:19):
relocate to a southwest Oklahoma reservation and encourage his people
to resettle to And it's interesting government agents ultimately made
him tribal chief overall Comanche, a distinction that clearly hadn't
existed in the previous era of autonomous bands that we
have been talking chi wouldn't have been something before. Sure,
(14:42):
and understandably some Commanche people did not take this distinction
very well. You can imagine the full range of criticisms
that they might have. I mean, they could think that
he didn't have the right to speak for their people,
or that his government approval was somehow illegiti him or
even made him illegitimate. The fact that the government named
(15:04):
him tribal chief discounted him somehow right away, and also
his mixed race ancestry. They could have thought that this
made him somehow suspect. And there's also the fact that
they might have thought that he sold out in the
first place. But I mean, if you if you look
at it, clearly a lot of other people did follow
his lead, whether that was out of respect for for
(15:24):
who he was, you know, for his bravery as a
warrior and his reputation as a warrior, or just because
he seemed like the most promising person to to follow
at the time, because he just had this determination to
make reservation life successful and get as much as he
could for the Comanche people. But he was undeniably an
effective mediator between two worlds, you know, between the world
(15:46):
of his people in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and
just to name a few a few things that he
really focused on. He had the problem of what was
he going to tell people who were used to leading
a nomadic life, you know, covering thousands of acres on
horseback hunting. Um, how how was he going to convince
(16:07):
them that settling on a reservation was going to be
a way to go. And he really encouraged them to
take up agriculture and ranching and and even get into
money making enterprises like leasing their land to other ranchers.
He himself put forth a good example with this. He
he became quite wealthy off of his own ranching, but
also investments into real estate and into railroad stocks. He
(16:31):
also became a huge supporter of education, and he acted
as a judge in tribal courts and really encouraged the
formation of a tribal police force. He also advocated for
the Comanche, regularly traveling to Washington, d c. And he
became friends with some notables like Charles good Night, who
had been present at the raid where Cynthia Anne was captured.
And good Night had gone on to become a big
(16:52):
man since then a cattle baron, so he was an
important figure at the time. And he also became friends
with Teddy Roosevelt attending his non duration in nineteen o five,
and he even hosted Roosevelt at his own Oklahoma home
Star House. But in addition to this mediating between two
cultures and going to Washington trying to get what he could,
(17:13):
he insisted on maintaining as much of his culture as
he could as well. Um for one main thing is
is not giving up polygamy. He had quite a few wives,
he had twenty four children, and it ultimately got him
dismissed from the tribal court his insistence on I think
he may have promised that he wouldn't marry any additional
wives and kind of went back on that. Just a
(17:34):
really strange note. Though it was the polygamy that really
bothered the government guys not quantas past as a war chief,
I mean as a very successful war chief who had
participated in raids that was sort of whitewashed almost now.
The polygamy was the controversial part, and he also defended
the right to use peyote in Native American church rituals.
(17:56):
Sometimes his culture kind of took on a sideshow aspect
when he'd participate in wild West shows, or sometimes he
would play up how people expected him to sound or
to talk. But Quanta saw these shows and even the
mock attacks as a way to display his culture to
people who really had no understanding of Comanche like. So
(18:17):
it was almost like there was an educational aspect to
him acting in this way, and that's how he said
he saw it, and I can see that just um,
he seemed very shrewd about his his understanding of what
other people knew, what other people thought Comanche were like,
and and wanting to teach them more in any way
(18:39):
he could. And in some respects he seems to have
combined his two worlds pretty effortlessly. I mean just in
terms of dress. And I know this is is a
superficial thing, but also it clearly meant something to him.
He would wear a suit while he was traveling, but
he preferred to wear moccasins instead of boots, and he
would wear steps and hat. But he kept his hair
in braids. I mean, any picture of him, he will
(19:02):
have long hair, sometimes his braids wrapped in what looks
like for and wearing beads. He learned to drive a car. Uh.
He seemed to relish maintaining aspects of his culture but
indulging in what he found pleasurable in in his new
life as well. And he was successful in a lot
(19:22):
of ways. He was really successful as a mediator and
a peacemaker. And you know that he didn't join in
with the ghost dance uprising in the eighteen nineties, And
so these facts make some of the later events in
his life kind of all the more tragic. For example,
in nineteen o one, the federal government broke up the
Comanche Reservation and redistributed the land. Also, a young son
(19:45):
of his died in nineteen o six of whooping cough.
And this was maybe the most point. I mean, clearly,
the breaking up the reservation was a big blow to him,
and a lot of people just left at that point
like okay, we're not going to do this anymore. He
did stay put. But one real poignant and tragic aspect
of this, especially for a man who thought that education
(20:06):
was clearly the way to success. Um his eight year
old son was dismissed from public school in Oklahoma because
white parents had complained. He ended up having to go
to a school just for Native American children instead. But
it was upsetting for for Quanta to see that for
somebody who had worked so hard to be a mediator
and to embrace um certain aspects of this new culture
(20:31):
he was in to to have it just turned around,
or somebody to whom education was so important and to
see to see that happened to his son. But probably
the real kicker here is he wouldn't have been eligible
to be a U. S. Citizen until more than ten
years after his death. Something that's just you know, I
don't think we need to make any more comment on that, Um,
(20:55):
but we mentioned this at the beginning and at the
end of the last Stepiod said too that clearly, even
though Quanta was separated from his mother at a very
young age, she left a big impression on him and
the circumstances of her life that she had been captured
as a girl by the command, shee, and then that
she had been captured again by her own people. Um,
(21:17):
and he was really haunted by by her story. In
nineteen ten, when his mother and sister were reinterred, he said, quote,
forty years ago my mother died, she captured by command.
She is nine years old. Love Indian and wildlife so well,
she no want to go back to white folks. All
same people anyway, God say so. Before he died at
(21:39):
Star House in nineteen eleven, he requested that he'd be
buried not with his wives, but with his mother and
his sister, and his grave reads quote, resting here until
daybreaks and shadows fall and darkness disappears, is Quanta Parker,
last chief of the Commanche. And that is in fact
true because from that point on the command she called
their elected leaders chairman rather than chief. So a truly
(22:03):
remarkable life, sad stories somebody who just I don't know,
I think maybe just the talent he showed in in
these wildly different worlds was what stood out to me. Um.
And that's just so poignantly mirrored by Cynthia Anne's horrible,
misfit sort of life. I mean, I know, she did
(22:25):
come to a comfortable situation among her Commanche people, but
just being a captive twice in her life. Uh, they
sort of twin each other in uh in a very
sad but fascinating sort of way. UM. One more thing
I just wanted to mention too. Recently, Jonathan and I
recorded an episode on codes in World War Two, and
(22:48):
we talked quite a bit about code talkers, focusing on
the Navajo code talkers, but we did mention the Comanche
as well, and um and how the language was so
complex because you know, it was a natural choice and
one that they felt or one that the the military felt.
That it was unlikely the language had been compromised, you know,
(23:09):
it was unknown to outsiders. And um I I started
just sort of thinking about that in terms of generations
and thinking those young men who were Comanche co talkers.
I mean, this would have been their grandparents would have
lived at the same time as as Quanta Parker potentially.
UM and how closely tied that is to to this
(23:32):
era and to have these men who signed up to
go serve I believe that most of the Comanche were
in Europe and the European theater, but to have them
sign up. They were thrilled to be able to use
their language in an official capacity and serve the United
States and serve with their cousins and their friends. Um.
(23:54):
Just tying all that together was neat to do. And
while we're on the topic of the importance of the
Comanche language, we should give another shout out to doctor Day,
right Sarah. Dr Kenneth Day of the Learned Commanche Project. Yeah,
I think he said that he they might have an
online learning course coming up sometime soon in the future,
(24:15):
so that will be in our Commanche pronunciation. We tried.
Any mistakes that we made are not any result of
any advice that he gave us. And we will say
it's supposed to be a notoriously hard language, so, you know,
give ourselves a little pat on the back there, just
excusing any any possible flips. You know, we did our best.
(24:40):
So we have kind of a mixed bag of mail today.
We have a little email and then I think we
have some real mail, right Sarah, we do. So. First
of all, we have a note from Kristen and she says,
I wanted to send you a picture of what I'm
working on while listening the scroll to my final viola.
I'm finishing violin making school in Chicago and it's been
working my way through every episode for the past few months.
(25:01):
Your podcast keeps you more focused than music, especially the
last six weeks for my final exam. She also gives
us She goes on to give us some music related
episode suggestions, and we'll just hang onto those in case
we use them in the future. We love music podcasts.
We mean to do. And we also saw some of
her pictures too, of the instrument she's working on. They're
(25:23):
really beautiful and it looks like a super fun thing
to be training for. UM. We also wanted to thank
a couple of our listeners who sent us in stuff.
Listener Teppy and I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly
sent us a comic called Murder Dollhouse that illustrated himself,
which is really cool. It sounds like kind of a
(25:44):
spooky story. Well, plus all these awesome little postcards with
illustrations that have funny things such as I'm not a
bowl of milk, I don't mix with Blake. Also thank
you to listener Judy, who sent us um some information
about the museum she worked at too. She's at epp
Work by the Sea uh in St. Simon's, which is Georgia,
(26:06):
So thank you both. Have you ever been to State
fun in Staplina? I have not nice little place, that's
what we're here like. I like South Georgia trips. I
have a one branch of the family is from down there,
so so cool, fun to visit. Anyway, thank you both
for sending along nice gifts like that, and thank you
(26:27):
too for for all the emails we received, such as
our instrument maker. Yeah, if you want to send us
any notes about what you're doing while you're listening to
the podcast, or you want to give us some suggestions
like this listener did, you can write us at a
history podcast at Discovery dot com, or you can look
us up on Facebook and we're on Twitter at this
tent history And if you want to learn more history, topic,
(26:49):
more culture topics, all sorts of things like that, we
of course have tons and tons of articles, all of
them to be found on our homepage at www dot
house stuff works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?
(27:13):
H M m m
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm fair Dowdy and I'm de blaney Chuk Reboarding and
where we left up. Last time, we were talking about
a story from the Old Western Frontier, specifically talking about
(00:24):
Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Kwanta Parker, who was
the last Comanche chief. And um, it's been a sad
story so far, one that we really kicked off with
Cynthia Anne's own kidnapping when she was only nine years old. Yeah,
focusing mostly on her life and what happened after that kidnapping.
She was taken from her Texas family home. She and
(00:47):
her brother and some more of her relatives, and while
most of them were ransomed back, she never surfaced. They
were never able to get her back or to find her,
as she was just sort of off to them even
even hear a word of her until the mid eighteen
forties when reports of her started to pop up, and
(01:09):
soon enough the picture was pretty clear she was alive
and well and was in fact living as a Commanche.
She had been raised by Comanche parents. She eventually went
on to marry a Comanche war chief named Petta Nakana,
who was interestingly also her captor um and had two
(01:31):
sons with him, Kwana and Peanut, and a daughter named
Prairie Flower. And Um by all accounts, seemed to be
completely content with her life, which was clearly something that
disturbed the other settlers. They did sort of learn of
her whereabouts and tried to ransom her back like they
did the other relatives. And she would not go. No,
(01:51):
she wouldn't go. And her people said, you cannot, You'd
have to kill us. You cannot take her. We will
not ransom her for any sum um. And you know,
I would imagine that would be relieving to hear that
she was alive to her family, But most people were
were concerned about the news because here was this woman,
you know, she had been kidnapped as a child, and
(02:13):
she was happy in her new life. She was happy
living among the Comanche. She had no wish to return
to her life with the settlers. So where we left off, specifically, though,
Cynthia Anne was going back, whether she liked it or not.
She had just been recaptured. Yeah, she had been recaptured
(02:34):
and taken back to live with her biological family and
when we saw her last, she was not happy about this.
She was very sad because she felt that her or
she knew in her heart that her husband and her
sons had been killed. Yeah, she believed that they had.
Both both her sons and her husband had been killed
(02:56):
in the raid where she was captured. Um and she
also just knew her her life as a commanche woman
was over. And I mean, aside from believing that her
husband and sons were murdered, she was entirely miserable in
this new situation. She tried to escape repeatedly from her
from her family. And what makes it all the more
(03:18):
sad is that she wasn't allowed to well, she wasn't
allowed to go back to her people, clearly, but she
wasn't allowed to leave or lead a retiring life either.
She was put into the public eye because of course,
she had been a well known person since her kidnapping
at age nine. I mean, she we mentioned in the
last episode, she was even used as a warning. Mother's
(03:41):
would warn their children, don't wander too far from the
house or you might end up like Cynthia Anne. So clearly,
the news of her recapture was huge all over papers nationwide,
and she ended up being celebrated in Austin, but clearly
the crowd intimidated her. The attention frightened her. Was a
woman who had gone through a lot of trauma recently,
(04:02):
and it was almost more like she was being put
on display as some kind of curiosity rather than somebody
who they were genuinely glad to have back. Right, So
she lived with her uncle for a time, and then
with her brother, Silas Parker, and then finally she lived
with her younger sister or Leanna. Neighbors remembered her as
being incredibly helpful during this time. For example, she could
(04:25):
tan hide, she sewed, she chopped wood, she even made
herbal remedies. But they also remembered her as being incredibly sad.
She was said to have slashed herself in a comanche
expression of grief. The moves to different family members just
took her further and further away from the frontier and
deeper into the forest. They would promise that maybe they'd
(04:47):
let her go visit her her family and her friends
at at certain points, but yeah, they were just moving
her further and further away from the country that she
had always lived in. Um prairie flowers seemed to throw
you know, she was obviously just a very young girl
when her mother was recaptured. She grew up learning English studying,
(05:08):
but she unfortunately died in eighteen sixty four of pneumonia.
And after that point, uh, Cynthia Anne really had no
connection left to to her old life and seemed to
spiral um and died a few years later in eighteen seventy,
also possibly of pneumonia or the flu. But um, Like
a lot of the story and a lot of the
(05:30):
stories related to Quanta's life, there are different accounts depending
on the source you look in, and a lot of
sources say that she starved herself to death. Um. So
that's basically the end of Cynthia Ann's story, even though
she does come into play later in Quanta's life. He
remains devoted to his mother and really inspired by by
(05:51):
her story when he's a warrior, but also inspired by
her I don't know her her double capture as a
as a man, and when he's trying to reconcile his
own two sides. So now we're going to kind of
switch from Cynthia Anne's life and look at Quanta and
and his brother. We know, we're not sure exactly. We
talked about this a little bit in the last podcast.
(06:12):
We're not exactly certain what happened to Cynthia Anne's husband,
but we can be pretty sure of what happened to Peanut.
He died of smallpox. And Quanta came out of this
terrible experience. I mean, think about all the things that
happened to him. He was orphaned quite young either way,
no matter which story about what happened to his father,
father died in the raid or whether he died as
(06:33):
Quanta said a couple of years later, right, but he
came out of it a competent warrior. He was strong
and taller than most of his peers at six ft tall.
His first major raid in eighteen sixty eight at age twenty,
was kind of a disaster, though it was an old
style raid where youngsters would make their names by stealing
some horses on these incredible long, sometimes multi year treks
(06:56):
into Mexico, and this one in particular was commanded by
a kai Oa war chief. The whole group almost starved,
They went two days without water twice, and clearly times
were changing. I mean, the Mexican settlements were aggressive and
they were. They weren't able to steal that many horses.
In fact, Quanta arrived back at camp on foot, which
is terribly humiliating. Yeah, I mean, just this, just to
(07:19):
think of this raid um compared to what raids might
have been like in Quanta's father's age, where you could
expect on one of these multi year tracks, uh, you know,
a thousand mile trip or something, of coming back having
made a name for yourself, having amassed a certain amount
of wealth. Horses were the measure of wealth for Comanche too,
(07:42):
you know. That was how you would pay a pay
a dowry and get married. It was. It was the
basis for a lot of their life. So as a
young man, setting yourself up with a lot of horses
was a good way to to start out. But clearly
it wasn't easy pickings anymore. Things we're getting tougher for
the Comanche and Um. Quanta did take part in more
(08:02):
raids that year in Texas, and it's worth noting here
that some sources go out of their way to explain
Quanta didn't participate in what most people would consider war atrocities,
and we went over quite a few of these in
the last episode. But um, the raids where rape isn't
involved murdering children, kidnapping, torturing people, mutilating people, or mutilating
(08:25):
bodies um, which, of course we're a political tactic of
war by the Comanche or by um by various tribes
to to try to force settlers off the land, to
try to scare them so badly. It's not about numbers,
it's about terrifying people into leaving and and reclaiming their
(08:46):
land that way. But a lot of sources seem to
absolve Quanta of of a lot of things like that.
And SD Gwen, the author of Empire of the Summer Moon,
points out that violence was a pretty standard thing for
a young Comanche warrior to participate in as both an
intimidation tactic like I just described, and of course also
(09:07):
an active revenge for captured family members, for murdered family members. Um.
Regardless though, of what Quanta did on these raids specifically,
he did come to prominence in his early twenties after
two fights in particular, and both really show leadership and
resolve more than anything. Yeah, and one his rating party
(09:29):
was attacked and the war chief was killed, and as
we saw in the Jim Booie episode. This usually led
to just complete chaos because the warriors would try to
collect their chief's body, but in this case Quantas stepped
up and shouted new directions. He also challenged a soldier
and what Gwen describes as kind of a joust, and
he got shot in the leg, but he shot his
(09:50):
target also in the shoulder with an arrow, and his
party managed to escape and they elected him their leader
that night. The second incident was in the summer of
eighteen six nine, where his raiding party murdered a man
driving an Oxen team. When a party rode out to
pursue them, Quanta, instead of fleeing, hunkered down in the
(10:12):
bushes and ended up lancing too men and his guys
saw this, it urged them on to continue the fight.
The battle ended up being a draw. I think the
Comanche party ran out of Ammo. But again the party
was really impressed by Quanta's leadership, by his bravery, and
elected him as the leader. So consequently Quanta became of
(10:34):
a leader among his people in an age when most
of his battles were going to be more about survival,
you know, not like the first raid into Mexico. We
talked about they were going to be more about survival
and protecting a way of life than stealing horses or intimidation.
Because by eighteen seventy there were only about four thousand
Comanche left, and only about one thousand who hadn't gone
(10:57):
on the reservation left, so this this or hadn't gone
on yet. So this free life that they were leading
uh was was clearly waning, and the civil wars end
really saw an uptick in the government and military response
to the few free Native Americans who were left in
the West. William to comes to Sherman as General in
(11:19):
chief of the Army was intensely concerned with protecting the
railroad interests out west, ending the Plains Indian Wars, and
really forcing the remaining Native Americans like Quantas Quhati Band
onto reservations. Yes, the Quhati Band, and we described on
the last podcast how the Commanche were broken into these
autonomous bands. They were one that had rejected this treaty
(11:42):
called the Medicine Lodge Treaty in eighteen sixty seven trying
to move the remaining tribes, the remaining bands, onto the reservation.
So clearly they were a target in addition to being
the commanche band with maybe the fiercest reputation, they were
a holdout as well. Um Seguin ominously called the situation
(12:03):
in eighteen seventy one the beginning of the Final Solution,
and it's also right when Kuana was becoming a big
name as a talented young war chief. Even though interestingly,
you might think since Cynthia Anne was such a celebrity
and national celebrity, even though she had passed on by
this point, you might think that he would be connected
(12:25):
to her publicly. But even though his mother's name was
in national papers by this point, their relation wasn't public
until eighteen seventy five, so people were pursuing the son
of a woman they had assuredly heard about. And just
a side note here, Sherman actually came close to death
himself on a tour of the area during this time.
(12:46):
A Kyowa rating party ended up by passing his group
for superstitious reasons, though, and they hit a wagon train
instead and what was called the Salt Creek massacre. So
Sherman knew exactly what what was going on. But the
last real attempt by Kuana and the Quahati to defend
themselves against settlement. Came in June of eighteen seventy four,
(13:10):
along with a man named Issatai, who was a Comanche
warrior and a medicine man who I really wish I
had gotten to read even more about. He sounded like
a pretty fascinating figure. Um he had achieved a certain
amount of unity among the bands, and he, along with
Quanta lad anywhere between two hundred and fifty and seven
hundred Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kyole warriors in an attack at
(13:35):
Adobe Walls, Texas. And I mean, you'd think with numbers
like that there were just about thirty Buffalo hunters inside.
But the attack was a disaster. The buffalo hunters had
these um these rifles with a really long range shot,
and Quanta ended up being pretty badly wounded. Uh, it
didn't go well and the U. S. Army retaliated really
(13:58):
forcefully as well afterwards. Um So, Quanta in the Equati
he was with, managed to hold out for about a
year after that before he finally had to admit that
the fight was over. He surrendered at Fort Sill. He
acknowledged he was the son of Cynthia Anne at this point,
so it's it's eighteen seventy five, and he agreed to
(14:19):
relocate to a southwest Oklahoma reservation and encourage his people
to resettle to And it's interesting government agents ultimately made
him tribal chief overall Comanche, a distinction that clearly hadn't
existed in the previous era of autonomous bands that we
have been talking chi wouldn't have been something before. Sure,
(14:42):
and understandably some Commanche people did not take this distinction
very well. You can imagine the full range of criticisms
that they might have. I mean, they could think that
he didn't have the right to speak for their people,
or that his government approval was somehow illegiti him or
even made him illegitimate. The fact that the government named
(15:04):
him tribal chief discounted him somehow right away, and also
his mixed race ancestry. They could have thought that this
made him somehow suspect. And there's also the fact that
they might have thought that he sold out in the
first place. But I mean, if you if you look
at it, clearly a lot of other people did follow
his lead, whether that was out of respect for for
(15:24):
who he was, you know, for his bravery as a
warrior and his reputation as a warrior, or just because
he seemed like the most promising person to to follow
at the time, because he just had this determination to
make reservation life successful and get as much as he
could for the Comanche people. But he was undeniably an
effective mediator between two worlds, you know, between the world
(15:46):
of his people in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and
just to name a few a few things that he
really focused on. He had the problem of what was
he going to tell people who were used to leading
a nomadic life, you know, covering thousands of acres on
horseback hunting. Um, how how was he going to convince
(16:07):
them that settling on a reservation was going to be
a way to go. And he really encouraged them to
take up agriculture and ranching and and even get into
money making enterprises like leasing their land to other ranchers.
He himself put forth a good example with this. He
he became quite wealthy off of his own ranching, but
also investments into real estate and into railroad stocks. He
(16:31):
also became a huge supporter of education, and he acted
as a judge in tribal courts and really encouraged the
formation of a tribal police force. He also advocated for
the Comanche, regularly traveling to Washington, d c. And he
became friends with some notables like Charles good Night, who
had been present at the raid where Cynthia Anne was captured.
And good Night had gone on to become a big
(16:52):
man since then a cattle baron, so he was an
important figure at the time. And he also became friends
with Teddy Roosevelt attending his non duration in nineteen o five,
and he even hosted Roosevelt at his own Oklahoma home
Star House. But in addition to this mediating between two
cultures and going to Washington trying to get what he could,
(17:13):
he insisted on maintaining as much of his culture as
he could as well. Um for one main thing is
is not giving up polygamy. He had quite a few wives,
he had twenty four children, and it ultimately got him
dismissed from the tribal court his insistence on I think
he may have promised that he wouldn't marry any additional
wives and kind of went back on that. Just a
(17:34):
really strange note. Though it was the polygamy that really
bothered the government guys not quantas past as a war chief,
I mean as a very successful war chief who had
participated in raids that was sort of whitewashed almost now.
The polygamy was the controversial part, and he also defended
the right to use peyote in Native American church rituals.
(17:56):
Sometimes his culture kind of took on a sideshow aspect
when he'd participate in wild West shows, or sometimes he
would play up how people expected him to sound or
to talk. But Quanta saw these shows and even the
mock attacks as a way to display his culture to
people who really had no understanding of Comanche like. So
(18:17):
it was almost like there was an educational aspect to
him acting in this way, and that's how he said
he saw it, and I can see that just um,
he seemed very shrewd about his his understanding of what
other people knew, what other people thought Comanche were like,
and and wanting to teach them more in any way
(18:39):
he could. And in some respects he seems to have
combined his two worlds pretty effortlessly. I mean just in
terms of dress. And I know this is is a
superficial thing, but also it clearly meant something to him.
He would wear a suit while he was traveling, but
he preferred to wear moccasins instead of boots, and he
would wear steps and hat. But he kept his hair
in braids. I mean, any picture of him, he will
(19:02):
have long hair, sometimes his braids wrapped in what looks
like for and wearing beads. He learned to drive a car. Uh.
He seemed to relish maintaining aspects of his culture but
indulging in what he found pleasurable in in his new
life as well. And he was successful in a lot
(19:22):
of ways. He was really successful as a mediator and
a peacemaker. And you know that he didn't join in
with the ghost dance uprising in the eighteen nineties, And
so these facts make some of the later events in
his life kind of all the more tragic. For example,
in nineteen o one, the federal government broke up the
Comanche Reservation and redistributed the land. Also, a young son
(19:45):
of his died in nineteen o six of whooping cough.
And this was maybe the most point. I mean, clearly,
the breaking up the reservation was a big blow to him,
and a lot of people just left at that point
like okay, we're not going to do this anymore. He
did stay put. But one real poignant and tragic aspect
of this, especially for a man who thought that education
(20:06):
was clearly the way to success. Um his eight year
old son was dismissed from public school in Oklahoma because
white parents had complained. He ended up having to go
to a school just for Native American children instead. But
it was upsetting for for Quanta to see that for
somebody who had worked so hard to be a mediator
and to embrace um certain aspects of this new culture
(20:31):
he was in to to have it just turned around,
or somebody to whom education was so important and to
see to see that happened to his son. But probably
the real kicker here is he wouldn't have been eligible
to be a U. S. Citizen until more than ten
years after his death. Something that's just you know, I
don't think we need to make any more comment on that, Um,
(20:55):
but we mentioned this at the beginning and at the
end of the last Stepiod said too that clearly, even
though Quanta was separated from his mother at a very
young age, she left a big impression on him and
the circumstances of her life that she had been captured
as a girl by the command, shee, and then that
she had been captured again by her own people. Um,
(21:17):
and he was really haunted by by her story. In
nineteen ten, when his mother and sister were reinterred, he said, quote,
forty years ago my mother died, she captured by command.
She is nine years old. Love Indian and wildlife so well,
she no want to go back to white folks. All
same people anyway, God say so. Before he died at
(21:39):
Star House in nineteen eleven, he requested that he'd be
buried not with his wives, but with his mother and
his sister, and his grave reads quote, resting here until
daybreaks and shadows fall and darkness disappears, is Quanta Parker,
last chief of the Commanche. And that is in fact
true because from that point on the command she called
their elected leaders chairman rather than chief. So a truly
(22:03):
remarkable life, sad stories somebody who just I don't know,
I think maybe just the talent he showed in in
these wildly different worlds was what stood out to me. Um.
And that's just so poignantly mirrored by Cynthia Anne's horrible,
misfit sort of life. I mean, I know, she did
(22:25):
come to a comfortable situation among her Commanche people, but
just being a captive twice in her life. Uh, they
sort of twin each other in uh in a very
sad but fascinating sort of way. UM. One more thing
I just wanted to mention too. Recently, Jonathan and I
recorded an episode on codes in World War Two, and
(22:48):
we talked quite a bit about code talkers, focusing on
the Navajo code talkers, but we did mention the Comanche
as well, and um and how the language was so
complex because you know, it was a natural choice and
one that they felt or one that the the military felt.
That it was unlikely the language had been compromised, you know,
(23:09):
it was unknown to outsiders. And um I I started
just sort of thinking about that in terms of generations
and thinking those young men who were Comanche co talkers.
I mean, this would have been their grandparents would have
lived at the same time as as Quanta Parker potentially.
UM and how closely tied that is to to this
(23:32):
era and to have these men who signed up to
go serve I believe that most of the Comanche were
in Europe and the European theater, but to have them
sign up. They were thrilled to be able to use
their language in an official capacity and serve the United
States and serve with their cousins and their friends. Um.
(23:54):
Just tying all that together was neat to do. And
while we're on the topic of the importance of the
Comanche language, we should give another shout out to doctor Day,
right Sarah. Dr Kenneth Day of the Learned Commanche Project. Yeah,
I think he said that he they might have an
online learning course coming up sometime soon in the future,
(24:15):
so that will be in our Commanche pronunciation. We tried.
Any mistakes that we made are not any result of
any advice that he gave us. And we will say
it's supposed to be a notoriously hard language, so, you know,
give ourselves a little pat on the back there, just
excusing any any possible flips. You know, we did our best.
(24:40):
So we have kind of a mixed bag of mail today.
We have a little email and then I think we
have some real mail, right Sarah, we do. So. First
of all, we have a note from Kristen and she says,
I wanted to send you a picture of what I'm
working on while listening the scroll to my final viola.
I'm finishing violin making school in Chicago and it's been
working my way through every episode for the past few months.
(25:01):
Your podcast keeps you more focused than music, especially the
last six weeks for my final exam. She also gives
us She goes on to give us some music related
episode suggestions, and we'll just hang onto those in case
we use them in the future. We love music podcasts.
We mean to do. And we also saw some of
her pictures too, of the instrument she's working on. They're
(25:23):
really beautiful and it looks like a super fun thing
to be training for. UM. We also wanted to thank
a couple of our listeners who sent us in stuff.
Listener Teppy and I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly
sent us a comic called Murder Dollhouse that illustrated himself,
which is really cool. It sounds like kind of a
(25:44):
spooky story. Well, plus all these awesome little postcards with
illustrations that have funny things such as I'm not a
bowl of milk, I don't mix with Blake. Also thank
you to listener Judy, who sent us um some information
about the museum she worked at too. She's at epp
Work by the Sea uh in St. Simon's, which is Georgia,
(26:06):
So thank you both. Have you ever been to State
fun in Staplina? I have not nice little place, that's
what we're here like. I like South Georgia trips. I
have a one branch of the family is from down there,
so so cool, fun to visit. Anyway, thank you both
for sending along nice gifts like that, and thank you
(26:27):
too for for all the emails we received, such as
our instrument maker. Yeah, if you want to send us
any notes about what you're doing while you're listening to
the podcast, or you want to give us some suggestions
like this listener did, you can write us at a
history podcast at Discovery dot com, or you can look
us up on Facebook and we're on Twitter at this
tent history And if you want to learn more history, topic,
(26:49):
more culture topics, all sorts of things like that, we
of course have tons and tons of articles, all of
them to be found on our homepage at www dot
house stuff works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?
(27:13):
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