-
Late one night in 1871, a group of riders
descended on a sleeping army camp.
-
In minutes they stirred the camp into a
panic,
-
stole about seventy horses,
and disappeared.
-
Led by a young chief named Quanah
Parker,
-
the raid was the latest in a long series
of altercations
-
along the Texas frontier between
the indigenous people known as the Numunu,
-
or Comanches,
-
and the United States forces sent to
steal Comanche lands for white settlers.
-
Though the conflict was decades old,
-
U.S. Colonel Ranald MacKenzie
led the latest iteration.
-
From summer to winter, he tracked Quanah.
-
But Quanah was also tracking him, and each
time the colonel drew near his targets,
-
they disappeared without a
trace into the vast plains.
-
The Comanches had controlled this
territory for nearly two hundred years,
-
hunting buffalo and moving whole villages
around the plains.
-
They suppressed Spanish and Mexican
attacks from the south,
-
attempts to settle the land by the United
States from the east,
-
and numerous other indigenous peoples’
bids for power.
-
The Comanche Empire was not one
unified group under central control,
-
but rather a number of bands, each with
its own leaders.
-
What all of these bands had in common
was their prowess as riders—
-
every man, woman, and child was adept
on horseback.
-
Their combat skills on horseback
-
far surpassed those of both other
indigenous peoples and colonists,
-
allowing them to control an enormous
area with relatively few people—
-
probably about 40,000 at their peak
-
and only about 4-5,000 by the time Quanah
Parker and Ranald Mackenzie faced off.
-
Born around 1848, Quanah was the eldest
child of Peta Nocona,
-
a leader of the Nokoni band,
and Cynthia Ann Parker,
-
a kidnapped white settler who assimilated
with the Comanches
-
and took the name Naduah.
-
When Quanah was a preteen,
-
US forces ambushed his village,
capturing his mother and sister.
-
Quanah and his younger brother sought
refuge with a different Comanche band,
-
the Quahada.
-
In the years that followed, Quanah proved
himself as a warrior and leader.
-
In his early twenties, he and a young
woman named Weakeah eloped,
-
enraging her powerful father and several
other leaders.
-
They stayed on the run for a year,
-
attracting followers and establishing
Quanah as a paraibo, or chief,
-
at an exceptionally young age.
-
Under his leadership the Quahada band
was able to elude the U.S. military
-
and continue their way of life.
-
But in the early 1870s, the East Coast
market for buffalo hides became lucrative,
-
and hunters slaughtered millions of
buffalo in just a few years.
-
Meanwhile, U.S. forces led
a surprise attack,
-
killing nearly all the Quahada band’s 1400
horses and stealing the rest.
-
Though he had vowed to never surrender,
Quanah knew that without bison or horses,
-
the Comanches faced certain
starvation in winter.
-
So in 1875 Quanah and
the Quahada band
-
moved to the Fort Sill
reservation in Oklahoma.
-
As hunter-gatherers,
they could not transition easily
-
to an agricultural way of life
on the reservation.
-
The US government had promised
rations and supplies,
-
but what they provided was
wildly insufficient.
-
Quanah, meanwhile, was suddenly in a
weak political position:
-
he had no wealth or power
-
compared to others who had been
on the reservation longer.
-
Still, he saw an opportunity.
-
The reservation included ample grasslands—
-
useless to the Comanches but perfect for
cattle ranchers to graze their herds.
-
He began a profitable arrangement leasing
the land to cattle ranchers,
-
quietly at first.
-
Eventually, he negotiated leasing rights
with the US government,
-
which ensured a steady source of income
for the Comanches on the reservation.
-
As Quanah’s status on the reservation
-
and recognition from government
officials grew,
-
he secured better rations, advocated for
the construction of schools and houses,
-
and became one of three tribal judges
on the reservation court.
-
Tired of speaking with multiple leaders,
-
the U.S. Government wanted to appoint
one chief of all Comanches—
-
a role that hadn’t existed
outside the reservation.
-
Still, many Comanches supported Quanah
for this role,
-
just as several older leaders had
supported him
-
to lead them against the US armed forces.
-
Even Quanah’s former adversary, Ranald
MacKenzie, advocated for his appointment.
-
Quanah acted in Hollywood movies and
befriended American politicians,
-
riding in Theodore Roosevelt’s
inauguration parade.
-
Still, he never cut his long braids and
advocated for the Native American Church
-
and the use of peyote.
-
He began to go by Quanah Parker, adopting
his mother’s surname,
-
and tried to track down his mother
and sister,
-
eventually learning they had both
died shortly after their capture.
-
Quanah adapted again and again—
to different worlds, different roles,
-
and circumstances that would seem
insurmountable to most.
-
Though he wasn’t without critics,
after Quanah’s passing,
-
Comanches began using the term “chairman”
-
to designate the top elected
official in the tribe,
-
recognizing him as the last chief of the
Comanches
-
and a model of cultural
survival and adaptation.
-
In that spirit, today’s Comanche Nation
looks towards the future,
-
with over 16,000 enrolled citizens
and countless descendants.