Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

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Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History Page 43

by S. C. Gwynne


  22. Linn, p. 347.

  23. Victor M. Rose, The Life and Services of General Ben McCulloch, p. 64 (citing verbatim account of John Henry Brown).

  24. Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense, p. 62.

  25. Jenkins, p. 68.

  26. Linn, p. 343.

  27. Schilz and Schilz, p. 23.

  28. Brazos, Life of Robert Hall, pp. 52–53.

  29. Schilz and Schilz, p. 24.

  30. J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, p. 185.

  Eight WHITE SQUAW

  1. Eugene E. White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, p. 262.

  2. James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Story of Her Capture, pp. 23–24.

  3. Clarksville Northern Standard, May 25, 1846.

  4. Daniel J. Gielo and Scott Zesch, eds., “Every day Seemed to Be a Holiday: The Captivity of Bianca Babb,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 107 (July 2003): 36.

  5. T. A. Babb, In the Bosom of the Comanches, p. 34.

  6. Scott Zesch, The Captured, p. 45.

  7. Babb, p. 22.

  8. Gielo and Zesch, p. 56.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid., p. 57.

  11. Zesch, p. 75.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid., p. 81.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid., p. 85.

  16. Babb, p. 58.

  17. Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 61; and Thomas Kavanaugh, The Comanches, p. 296. Note that Buffalo Hump, Little Wolf, and Santa Anna were all powerful chiefs, and some considered them more powerful than Old Owl or Pah-hah-yuco. My research has shown that, assuming the Wallace/Hoebel model of social organization is right, they would fall more into the traditional category of “war chiefs.”

  18. Kavanaugh, p. 266.

  19. Ibid., p. 297.

  20. Clarksville Northern Standard, May 25, 1846.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Letter: P. M. Butler and M. G. Lewis to the Hon. W. Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, August 8, 1848, House Executive Documents No. 1, 30th Congress, Second Session, p. 578.

  23. DeShields, The Story of Her Capture, p. 30.

  24. Butler, and Lewis, p. 578.

  25. Joyde Lynne Dickson Schilz and Thomas F. Schilz, Buffalo Hump and the Penateka Comanches, p. 24, and Dorman H. Winfrey and James M. Day, eds., Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, 1816–1925, vol. 1, p. 266.

  26. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 57.

  27. Ibid., p. 72.

  28. DeShields, p. 28.

  29. T. R. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 349.

  30. David La Vere, Contrary Neighbors, p. 120.

  31. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, pp. 169–70.

  32. Ramon Powers and James N. Leiker, “Cholera Among the Plains Indians,” Western Historical Quarterly 29 (Fall 1998): 319.

  33. Ibid., p. 321.

  34. Ibid., pp. 322–23.

  35. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 78.

  36. Letter: Horace Capron to Robert Howard, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 30, 1852, letters received, M234, Roll 858, Texas Agency (cited in Schilz and Schilz, p. 38).

  37. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 60.

  38. Letter: Robert S. Neighbors to the Hon. W. Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 18, 1847, 30th Congress, First Session, Senate Committee Report 171.

  39. Kavanaugh, p. 265.

  40. Chief Baldwin Parker, The Life of Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, through J. Evetts Haley, August 29, 1930, manuscript, Center for American History, University of Texas, p. 9.

  41. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 291 (note).

  42. Ibid., p. 139.

  43. Ibid., p. 138.

  44. DeShields, p. 32.

  45. Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker, p. 52; also, Cynthia Ann later picked up another nickname: “Preloch.” It was not uncommon for Indians to have several names.

  46. Randolph Marcy, Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana in the Year 1852, p. 37.

  Nine CHASING THE WIND

  1. James W. Parker, Defence of James W. Parker Against Slanderous Accusations, p. 4.

  2. Ibid., p. 5.

  3. James W. Parker, The Rachel Plummer Narrative, entire.

  4. W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill, pp. 35–36.

  5. T. R. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 224.

  6. J. Evetts Haley, “The Comanchero Trade,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 38 (January 1935): 38.

  7. David La Vere, Contrary Neighbors, p. 117.

  8. Ibid., p. 123.

  9. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 84.

  10. Ibid., p. 87.

  11. Rachel Plummer, Narrative of the Capture and Subsequent Sufferings of Rachel Plummer, pp. 116–17.

  12. James Parker, The Rachel Plummer Narrative, p. 27.

  13. Letter: James Parker to M. B. Lamar, March 17, 1839, in Charles Gulick, ed., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, vol. 2, p. 494.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Exley, p. 104. Note that Exley is the sole source on the third child, citing a letter from L. T. M. Plummer to “Dear Nephews” from a private collection.

  16. Randolph B. Marcy, Adventure on Red River, p. 169.

  17. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813–1863, vol. 4, pp. 180–81.

  18. Exley, p. 177 (citing Confederate records).

  Ten DEATH’S INNOCENT FACE

  1. Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 78.

  2. This idea is mentioned in Webb’s The Texas Rangers, but it appeared originally in

  J. W. Wilbarger’s Indian Depredations in Texas, originally published in 1889.

  3. Walter Prescott, Webb, The Great Plains, p. 167.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, Our Wild Indians, pp. 418–20.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Evan Connell, Son of the Morning Star, p. 57.

  8. Colonel Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 421.

  9. Panhandle Plains Historical Museum exhibit.

  10. Colonel Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 421.

  11. David La Vere, Contrary Neighbors, p. 35.

  12. Ibid.

  13. T. R. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 298.

  14. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, p. 257.

  15. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 146.

  16. Herman Lehmann, Nine Years Among the Indians, pp. 47–50.

  17. Clinton L. Smith, The Boy Captives, pp. 52–53.

  18. Mike Cox, The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821–1900, p. 42.

  19. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 46.

  20. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 300.

  21. Z. N. Morrell, Flowers and Fruits in the Wilderness, p. 86.

  22. Mary Maverick, Memoirs of Mary Maverick, p. 29.

  23. Major John Caperton, Sketch of Colonel John C. Hays, The Texas Rangers, Incidents in Mexico, p. 11.

  24. Ibid., p. 32.

  25. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 258.

  26. Captain Nathan Brookshire, Report in Journals of the Fourth Congress of the Republic of Texas, vol. 3, pp. 110–11.

  27. J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, pp. 368ff.

  28. Colonel Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 522.

  29. James Kimmins Greer, Colonel Jack Hays: Frontier Leader and California Builder,

  p. 35.

  30. Wilbarger, p. 74.

  31. The photo referred to is in Greer’s biography of Hays.

  32. Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 67.

  33. Caperton, p. 5.

  34. Colonel John S. Ford, John C. Hays In Texas, p. 5.

  35. Caperton, p. 13.

  36. Greer, p. 26.

  37. Cox, p. 78.

  38. Victor Rose, The Life and Services of Ben McCulloch, p.
42.

  39. Caperton, p. 9.

  40. Ibid., p. 10.

  41. Webb, The Texas Rangers, p 81.

  42. Ibid., p. 84.

  43. Rose, p. 84.

  44. Cox, p. 87 (citing James Nichols Wilson, Now Your Hear My Horn: Journal of James Wilson Nichols [Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967], pp. 122–23).

  45. Ibid.

  46. Wilbarger, p. 73.

  47. Caperton, pp. 18–19.

  48. Charles Adams Gulick, ed., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, vol. 4,

  pp. 234–35.

  49. Wilbarger, p. 72.

  50. Cox, pp. 82–83; see also Gulick, p. 232.

  51. Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 71.

  52. Ibid., p. 120.

  53. Gulick, p. 234.

  54. John E. Parsons, Sam Colt’s Own Record of Transactions with Captain Walker and Eli Whitney, Jr., in 1847, p. 8.

  55. Ibid., p. 9.

  56. Cox, p. 93; see also Robert M. Utley, Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers, p. 10.

  57. Ford, pp. 18ff. Note that this account comes from Hays himself. He gave it to the Houston Star, where it appeared on June 23, 1844, and was later picked up by other papers, including the Clarksville Northern Standard.

  58. Ford, p. 20.

  59. Ibid., p. 21.

  60. Parsons, p. 10.

  61. Ibid., p 8.

  62. Ibid., p. 10.

  63. Ibid., p. 16.

  64. Ibid., p. 46.

  65. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 303.

  66. Cox, p. 113.

  Eleven WAR TO THE KNIFE

  1. A. B. Mason, “The White Captive,” Civilian and Gazette, 1860 (reprint of story in The White Man).

  2. Jonathan Hamilton Baker, Diary of Jonathan Hamilton Baker of Palo Pinto County, Texas, Part 1, 1858–1860, p. 210.

  3. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 158.

  4. G. A. Holland, The History of Parker County and the Double Log Cabin (Weatherford, Tex.: The Herald Publishing Company, 1937), pp. 18, 46.

  5. Ibid., p. 46.

  6. Hilory G. Bedford, Texas Indian Troubles, pp. 70–71.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator, p. 38.

  9. Ibid., pp. 38ff.

  10. J. P. Earle, A History of Clay County and Northwest Texas, Written by J. P. Earle, one of the first pioneers, p. 76.

  11. Mike Cox, The Texas Rangers, p. 164.

  12. The White Man, September 13, 1860.

  13. Cox, p. 162.

  14. J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman, p. 49.

  15. Charles Goodnight, Indian Recollections, pp. 15ff.

  16. Marshall Doyle, A Cry Unheard: The Story of Indian Attacks in and Around Parker County, Texas, 1858–1872, pp. 18–19.

  17. Ibid., p. 33.

  18. Ernest Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, 1849–1875, p. 17.

  19. Ibid., p. 13.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Exley, p. 169.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 142.

  24. Ibid., p 147.

  25. T. R. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 400.

  26. Ibid., p. 401.

  27. John S. Ford, Rip Ford’s Texas, p. 222.

  28. Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, p 18.

  29. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 402.

  30. Ernest Wallace, and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, p. 296.

  31. Larry McMurtry, Crazy Horse, p. 77, citing Alex Shoumatoff.

  32. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 297.

  33. Ibid., p. 299.

  34. Randolph Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, p. 218.

  35. Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, p. 25.

  36. Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 169; Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, p. 24.

  37. Cox, The Texas Rangers, p. 144.

  38. Ford, p. 224.

  39. Ibid., pp. 223ff.

  40. Ibid., pp. 231–32.

  41. Cox, p. 146.

  42. Ford, p. 233.

  43. James DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker, the Story of Her Capture, p. 40.

  44. Ford, p. 233.

  45. Cox, p. 147.

  46. Ford, p. 233.

  47. Ibid., p. 235.

  48. Cited from Cox, p. 145.

  49. W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill, p. 19.

  50. Benner, pp. 29ff.

  51. Ibid., p. 32.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, p. 24.

  Twelve WHITE QUEEN OF THE COMANCHES

  1. Jonathan Hamilton Baker, Diary of Jonathan Hamilton Baker, pp. 191–92.

  2. J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman, p. 52.

  3. Ibid., pp. 50–51.

  4. Ibid., pp. 51–52.

  5. Cited in Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 148.

  6. Baker, pp. 202ff.

  7. B. F. Gholson, Recollections of B. F. Gholson, p. 24.

  8. Marshall Doyle, A Cry Unheard, p. 35; see also Haley, p. 53.

  9. Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator, p. 52.

  10. Charles Goodnight, Charles Goodnight’s Indian Recollections, p. 22.

  11. Gholson, p. 28.

  12. YA-A-H-HOO: Warwhoop of the Comanches, narrative in Elizabeth Ross Clarke archives, Center for American History, University of Texas in Austin, p. 66.

  13. Hilory G. Bedford, Texas Indian Troubles, p. 73; the account also appears in J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas.

  14. Ibid., p. 58.

  15. Gholson, p. 30.

  16. Ibid., p. 34.

  17. Baker, p. 204.

  18. The Galveston Civilian, February 5, 1861.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Gholson, p. 40.

  21. Ibid., p. 44.

  22. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813–1863, vol. 4, pp. 60–61.

  23. Lawrence T. Jones, “Cynthia Ann Parker and Pease Ross, The Forgotten Photographs,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, January 1991, p. 379.

  24. Bedford, p. 75.

  25. Eugene E. White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, p. 271; letter written by Sul Ross while governor.

  26. H. B. Rogers, The Recollections of H. B. Rogers, as told to J. A. Rickard (appended to Gholson manuscript), p. 66.

  27. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 175.

  28. Lawrence T. Jones, “Cynthia Ann Parker and Pease Ross,” p. 379.

  29. Exley, pp. 170–71, citing an account by Medora Robinson Turner.

  30. Clarksville Northern Standard, April 6, 1861.

  31. Letter: K. J. Pearson, to John D. Floyd, February 3, 1861, Fort Sill Archives.

  32. Margaret Schmidt Hacker, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Life and Legend, p. 32.

  33. Stephen B. Oates, “Texas Under the Secessionists,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 167 (October 1963): 167.

  34. Ibid., p. 168.

  35. James T. DeShields, The Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker, p. 71.

  36. Clarksville Northern Standard, April 6, 1861.

  37. Jones, “Cynthia Ann Parker and Pease Ross,” p. 380.

  38. Exley, p. 175.

  39. Coho Smith, Cohographs, p. 69. All of the material relating to the Smith-Parker meetings is derived from Smith’s own account.

  40. Jan Isbelle Fortune, “The Recapture and Return of Cynthia Ann Parker,” Groesbeck Journal, May 15, 1936, p. 1.

  41. Exley, p. 176, citing an article written by Parker family member Tom Champion.

  42. Jones, “Cynthia Ann Parker and Pease Ross,” p 190.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Hacker, p. 35.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Exley, p. 178, citing Champion account.

  48. Letter: T. J. Cates to the Edgewood Enterprise, June 1918.

  49. Exley, p. 179.

  50. Disinterment Permit, Texas State Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, dated August 25, 1865.
r />   51. Paul Wellman, “Cynthia Ann Parker,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 12, no. 2 (1934): 163.

  Thirteen THE RISE OF QUANAH

  1. This was Cynthia Ann’s own account of what had happened. See Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator, p. 56.

  2. Robert H. Williams, “The Case for Peta Nocona,” In Texana, Vol 10, 1972, p. 55. Williams makes a superbly argued case for what is fairly obvious anyway, that Quanah’s later insistence that he and his father were out hunting during the attack is simply untrue. Quanah did it to protect his father’s reputation, and he did not even attempt to set the record straight until 1898, almost forty years after the event. He did it most famously in a speech in Dallas in 1910 shortly before his death. Williams also points out that the two riders who left the battlefield had to be Quanah and his brother.

  3. J. Evetts Haley, ed., Charles Goodnight’s Indian Recollections, pp. 25–26.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, pp. 183–84; citing untitled manuscript of J. A. Dickson.

  7. Ibid., p. 186.

  8. Ibid., pp. 199ff.

  9. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, p. 81.

  10. Charles Goodnight, The Making of a Scout, manuscript in Panhandle Plains Historical Museum Archives.

  11. Wallace and Hoebel, pp. 178ff.

  12. Ibid., p. 183.

  13. “Quanah Parker in Adobe Walls Battle,” Borger News Herald, date unknown, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum Archives, based on interview with J. A. Dickson.

  14. Elizabeth Ross Clarke, YA-A-H-HOO: Warwhoop of the Comanches, manuscript at Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin, p. 73.

  15. Exley, p. 184, citing untitled Dickson ms.

  16. Chief Baldwin Parker, Life of Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, through J. Evetts Haley, August 29, 1930, manuscript at Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin.

  17. Exley, Dickson ms.

  18. Randolph Marcy, Adventure on Red River: A Report on the Exploration of the Red River by Captain Randolph Marcy and Captain G. B. McClellan, p. 159.

  19. Scott Zesch, The Captured, pp. 68–76.

  20. Thomas W. Kavanaugh, The Comanches, p. 372; Zoe A. Tilghman, Quanah, Eagle of the Comanches, pp. 68ff.

  21. Kavanaugh, The Comanches, p. 481.

  22. Tilghman, pp. 68ff.

  23. Exley, p. 204, citing untitled Dickson ms.

  24. Kavanaugh, The Comanches, p. 473.

  25. Olive King Dixon, Fearless and Effective Foe: He Spared Women and Children, Always, manuscript, Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin.

 

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