Quanah Parker
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Quanah Parker (c. late 1840s - February 23, 1911) was a Native American leader, the son of Comanche chief Peta Nocona and "Anglo-Texan" Cynthia Ann Parker, and the last chief of the Quahadi Comanche Indians.
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[edit] From youth to leadership
Quanah Parker's mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was a member of the large Parker frontier family that settled in east Texas in the 1830s. She was captured in 1836 by Comanches during the raid of Fort Parker near present-day Groesbeck, Texas. She was given the Indian name Nadua ("Someone Found"), and adopted into the Nocona band of Comanches. Cynthia Ann eventually married the Comanche warrior Puhtocnocony (called Peta Nocona by the whites). Quanah was her firstborn son. She also had another son, Pecos ("Peanut") and a daughter, Topsana ("Prairie Flower)" In 1860, Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured in the battle of Pease River by Texas Rangers under Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Peta Nocona, Quanah, and most of the other men were out hunting when Ross' men attacked. Returning to find the aftermath, they found it difficult to get any information as only a few people were still alive. Meanwhile, Cynthia Ann was reunited with her white family, but years with the Comanches had made her a different person. She frequently demanded to return to her husband, but was never permitted to do so. After Topsana died of an illness, Cynthia Ann starved herself to death.
Soon after the Pease River battle, Peta Nocona was said to be a broken, bitter man. He was later wounded on a raid with Apaches. Already in ill-health, with an older war wound troubling him, he soon died. Before his death, he told Quanah of his mother's capture from the whites. With this revelation came taunts from other tribesmen that Quanah was a half-breed. With Nocona's death, his band split. Quanah joined the Destanyuka band, where Chief Wild Horse took him under his wing. Though he grew to considerable standing as a warrior, he never felt comfortable with the Destanyuka. He left and formed the Quahadi ("Antelope Eaters") band with warriors from another tribe. The Quahadis eventually grew in number, becoming the largest of the Comanche bands, and also the most notorious. Quanah Parker became a leader of the Kwahari, and led them successfully for a number of years.
[edit] The Battle Of Adobe Walls
In October, 1867, Quanah was among the Comanche chiefs at Medicine Lodge. Though he did not give a speech – his place was as an observer – he did make a statement about not signing the Medicine Lodge Treaty. His band remained free while other Comanches signed.
In the early 1870s, the plains Indians were losing the battle for their land. Following the capture of the Kiowa chiefs Satank, Adoeet (Big Tree), and Satanta, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne tribes joined forces in several battles. Colonel Ranald Mackenzie was sent to eradicate all remaining Indians who had not settled on reservations.
In 1874, while in the Texas panhandle, a Comanche prophet named Isatai summoned the tribes to Adobe Walls, where several buffalo hunters were active. With Kiowa Chief Big Bow, Quanah was in charge of one group of warriors. The battle was a victory, but also his closest brush with death; he was shot twice.
[edit] On the reservations
With their food source depleted, and under constant pressure from the army, the Quahadi Comanches finally surrendered and in 1875 moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma. His home in Cache, Oklahoma was called the Star House. Parker's was the last tribe of the Staked Plains or Llano Estacado to come to the reservation. Quanah was named chief over all the Comanches on the reservation, and proved to be a forceful, resourceful and able leader. Through wise investments, he became perhaps the wealthiest American Indian of his day in the United States. Quanah embraced much of white culture, and was well respected by the whites. He went on hunting trips with President Theodore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he rejected both monogamy and traditional Protestant Christianity in favor of the Native American Church Movement. He had five wives and twenty five children and founded the Native American Church. One of his sons, White Parker, became a Methodist minister. Author Bill Neeley writes:
"Not only did Quanah pass within the span of a single lifetime from a Stone Age warrior to a statesman in the age of the Industrial Revolution, but he accepted the challenge and responsibility of leading the whole Comanche tribe on the difficult road toward their new existence."
Quanah died on February 23, 1911. He is buried at the Fort Sill Cemetery, beside his mother and sister. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
- Resting Here Until Day Breaks
- And Shadows Fall and Darkness
- Disappears is
- Quanah Parker Last Chief of the Comanches
- Born 1852
- Died Feb. 23, 1911.
[edit] Founder of the Native American Church Movement
Quanah Parker is credited as the founder of the Native American Church Movement. Parker adopted the peyote religion after reportedly seeing a vision of Jesus Christ while suffering from a near fatal wound following a battle with Federal Troops. Peyote is reported to contain hordenine and tyramine, phenylethylamine alkaloids which act as potent natural antibiotics when taken in a combined form. Parker was given peyote by a Ute medicine man to cure the infections of his wounds. During the peyote experience, Parker claimed he heard the voice of Jesus Christ who then appeared to him, and told him in order to atone for his many killings and misdeeds, he must forsake a life of violence and conflict and take the peyote religion to the Indian Peoples. Parker's words and teachings comprise the core of the Native American Church Doctrine and the "Peyote Road."
Parker taught that the sacred peyote medicine was the sacrament given to the Indian Peoples by the Lord Jesus Christ, and was to be used with water when taking communion in a traditional Native American Church medicine ceremony. Parker created the "half-moon" style of the peyote ceremony. The "cross" ceremony later evolved in Oklahoma due to Kiowa influences introduced by John Wilson, a Kiowa Indian who traveled extensively with Parker during the early days of the Native American Church movement. The Native American Church was the first truly "American" religion based on Christianity outside of the Latter Day Saints.
Parker's most famous teaching regarding the Spirituality of the Native American Church:
- The White Man goes into his church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his Tipi and talks with Jesus.
The modern reservation era in Native American History began with the universal adoption of the Native American Church and Christianity by virtually every Native American Tribe and Culture within North American and Canada as a result of Parker and Wilson's efforts. The Peyote religion and the Native American Church, however, was never the traditional religious practice of North American Indian Cultures. This religion was created by Parker's vision of Christ and was driven by influences from Mexico and other Southern Tribes who have used peyote since ancient times. Under Parker's leadership, peyote became an important item of trade, and this, combined with his Church movement and political and financial contacts, garnered Parker enormous wealth during his lifetime.
[edit] Criticism
Although praised by many in his tribe as a preserver of their culture, Quanah had critics within the Comanche community. Many claimed that he "sold out to the white man" with his rancher persona in later life, dressing and living in a more American than Comanche style. Quanah did adopt more white ways than most other Comanche of his time, but he always wore his hair long and in braids. He also refused to follow white American marriage customs, which would have required him to cast aside four of his five wives.
Another point of controversy among the Comanche was that Quanah was never elected chief of the entire tribe by the people themselves. Traditionally, the Comanche had no single chief. Some claim Quanah never held the title of chief before 1875, and that he had only been a warrior who led raids.[citation needed] Chief Horseback, rather than Quanah Parker, is sometimes credited as being the last true Comanche chief.[citation needed]
[edit] Family
Quanah's grandfather was the Chief Iron Jacket, famous among the Comanches as a powerful chief who wore a Spanish coat of mail and was said to have the power to blow bullets away with his breath.
Quanah's first wife was Weakeah, daughter of Comanche chief Yellow Bear. Originally, she was espoused to another warrior. Quanah and Wekeah eloped, and took several other warriors with them. It was from this small group that the large Quahadi band would form. Yellow Bear pursued the band and eventually Quanah made peace with him, and the two bands united, forming the largest force of Comanche Indians.
Over the years, Quanah accumulated four more wives. He had twenty-five children. Many north Texans and south Oklahomans claim descent from Quanah. It had been said that more Comanches are related to Quanah than any other chief. One grandson became Comanche chairman, the modern "Chief" of the tribe.
After moving to the reservation, Quanah first got in touch with his white relatives. He stayed for a few weeks with them, where he studied English and western culture, and learned white farming techniques.
[edit] Trivia
Quanah Parker was born sometime between 1845 and 1849 in the Wichita mountain region of what is now Oklahoma, and died in 1911 in Oklahoma. In 1957, both he and his mother were re-interred at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Quanah means "fragrant" in the Comanche language. Most Comanche warriors would take different names in manhood. It is believed Quanah never changed because that was the name his mother had known him by before her recapture.
For many years, it was circulated among whites that Peta Nocona was killed at the Battle of Mule Creek (Mule Creek is a tributary of the Pease River), which occurred much earlier than his actual death. Quanah later corrected this error, explaining that a sub-chief of the Noconi, Nobah, was the one killed.
The town of Quanah, Texas, county seat of Hardeman County, was named for Quanah Parker.
The town of Nocona, in Montague County, Texas, was named for Quanah Parker's father, Comanche chief Peta Nocona.
Henry Brandon played Quanah Parker in John Ford's film Two Rode Together.
Quanah's spacious home outside of Cache, Oklahoma, called the Star House, was moved to Eagle Park in Cache. The park has since closed down, but the house remains. Though poorly taken care of, many items including some furntiture, are still in the house. In 2006, vandals painted racial slurs on the house. This graffiti has since been removed.
Local legend has it that at midnight Quanah's ghosts rides across Quanah Parker Lake in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.
Parker Hall, a 1962 residence hall at Oklahoma State University, is named for Quanah Parker. It housed undergraduate men from 1962 to 1990. It is now co-ed, housing honors students until 2003, then non-honors students thereafter.
[edit] External links
- Quanah Parker
- Photographs of Quanah Parker hosted by the Portal to Texas History
[edit] References
- Frontier Blood: the Saga of the Parker Family, by Jo Ann Powell Exley
- Quanah Parker, by Clyde L. and Grace Jackson
- Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, by William T. Hagan
- The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker, by Bill Neeley
