Comanche oral tradition, as handed down from generation to generation by members of the extended Parker family, is neither more nor less accurate than many published accounts. It is a reliable gauge of the reverence for Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker that is such an important part of the spiritual life and identity of the Parker clan. Another excellent source of oral lore is Comanche Ethnology, a collection of the field notes of a team of anthropologists who interviewed eighteen Comanche elders in the 1930s. These field notes also contributed to two valuable anthropological studies: Comanches: Lords of the South Plains by Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, and Thomas W. Kavanagh’s The Comanches: A History.
Finally, two books that are required reading for anyone interested in Comanche history are The Comanches: Destruction of a People, T. R. Fehrenbach’s magisterial and lyrical classic, now much criticized by modern historians for its imperial assumptions; and Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire, a fresh interpretation of the meaning and the power of the Comanche nation, its allies and enemies.
Two writers who made essential contributions to The Searchers have been largely forgotten, but their lives and work can be traced in archives. The Alan LeMay Papers at UCLA contain twenty-three boxes of the novelist’s research and letters, donated after his death by his widow, Arlene. His son Dan also has many important documents and letters, which he used for his own biography of his father’s life, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has a file of correspondence between LeMay and his book editor, Evan Thomas. Screenwriter Frank S. Nugent’s widow, Jean, donated his papers to Boston University. There is no archive for Patrick Ford, John Ford’s only son and a key architect of the film. The only interview with him that I am aware of was conducted by James D’Arc at Brigham Young University in April 1979, and it is an invaluable source for anyone seeking to understand this somewhat tragic figure.
The Searchers has no dedicated archive, and John Ford was famously averse to committing his thoughts to paper. But the John Ford Papers at the Lilly Library at Indiana University contain the film notes that John and Pat Ford prepared as they worked out the concepts and logistics of the movie. The notes are not comprehensive—for example, there no notes between John Ford and Frank Nugent—but they are the best account we have of John Ford’s creative process going into the film shoot.
The other essential collection is the C. V. Whitney papers, which are the property of the Whitney family and which I was privileged to be the first researcher to examine. They offer a road map to Whitney’s thinking and ambitions, and his constant interventions with Merian C. Cooper in an effort to achieve the film he keenly wanted.
Other useful archival materials can be found in the Ronald L. Davis Collection at Southern Methodist University, which contains transcripts of the interviews Davis conducted with Ford’s and Wayne’s friends and colleagues for his thoroughly researched biographies of the two men; and in the Ransom Center’s John Wayne Papers, which contain the files of author Maurice Zolotow for a Wayne autobiography, My Kingdom Is a Horse, that the two men worked on but never completed. Zolotow went on to write Shooting Star, his own biography of Wayne, using the material. There are also intriguing shards of documents about The Searchers in the Warner Brothers Archive at the University of Southern California and at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
For such an iconic film, The Searchers has been the subject of surprisingly few books. Edward Buscombe’s The Searchers, part of the first-rate BFI Film Classics series, is an excellent introduction; while The Searchers: Essays and Reflections on John Ford’s Classic Western, edited by Arthur M. Eckstein and Peter Lehman, is a fine collection of thoughtful academic articles. Michael F. Blake’s Code of Honor gives a thorough account of the making of the film.
Fortunately, there are many fine books on Ford and Wayne to help fill the gap. The essential list includes Searching for John Ford: A Life, Joseph McBride’s magisterial biography; Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman; Pappy: The Life of John Ford by Dan Ford; and my sentimental favorite, Company of Heroes, Harry Carey Jr.’s candid but affectionate memoir of his life as a member of the John Ford Stock Company.
Notes
Abbreviations
BYU Brigham Young University Library
CVW Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Papers
FSN Frank S. Nugent
JFP John Ford Papers, Lilly Library, Indiana University
JW John Wayne
JWP James W. Parker
KCA Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Indian Agency Files
MHL Margaret Herrick Library
NYT New York Times
OKU University of Oklahoma Library
OKHS Oklahoma Historical Society
PPHM Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
QP Quanah Parker
SMU Southern Methodist University Library
TSL Texas State Library and Archives Commission
WB Warner Brothers Archive
Introduction: Pappy
“It’s so absolutely right”: Fonda to JF, April 5, 1954 (Lilly).
“Pappy, you know I love you”: Henry Fonda, Fonda: My Life, pp. 233–4.
Sometimes, when Ford was too wasted: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life, p. 550.
He had had cataract surgery: Gerald Peary, John Ford Interviews, p. 32.
“John Ford was going through changes”: Maureen O’Hara, ’Tis Herself: A Memoir, p. 193.
“My name is John Ford”: Robert Parrish, Growing Up in Hollywood, offers a detailed account of the meeting, pp. 207–210.
Ford … had once commissioned: See Larry Swindell, “Yes, John Ford Knew a Thing Or Two about Art,” John Ford Interviews, pp. 146–7.
“Wayne is plainly Ahab”: Greil Marcus, “John Wayne Listening,” p. 321.
“It was a sacred feeling”: Rachel Dodes, “IMAX Strikes Back,” Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2012.
“all modern American literature”: Stuart Byron, “The Searchers: Cult Movie of the New Hollywood,” New York, March 5, 1979, p. 45.
1. The Girl
“Thus was the wilderness”: James W. Parker, Narrative of the Perilous Adventures, p. 7.
the Night the Stars Fell: Joseph Taulman note, 2F 206 (Taulman Papers).
“The remainder of the night”: Carl Greenwood to Joseph Taulman, September 11, 1931 (Taulman); see also Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, pp. 36–7. For an extended family history of the Parkers in Illinois and Texas see Eugene G. O’Quinn, “Quanah—The Eagle: Half-White Comanche Chief,” unpublished (Van Zandt).
“not a good day for bee hunting”: Charles E. Parker to Joseph Taulman, Feb. 8, 1928, 2F 205 (Taulman).
“Farming was my only way”: Joseph Taulman, “First Regularly Organized and Constituted Protestant or Non-Catholic Church in Texas” (Taulman).
“He seemed full of his subject”: Max Lee, “Daniel Parker,” p. 2.
“without education, uncouth in manners”: Ibid., pp. 2–3.
“awakened in me feelings”: JWP, p. 5.
“We now shot them down”: Dyersbury (TN) State Gazette, May 29, 2002.
“We believe that God created man”: “Records of an Early Texas Baptist Church,” p. 86.
“The grass is more abundant”: Stephen F. Austin, “Journal,” p. 289.
“vicious and wild men”: Texas by Terán: The Diary Kept by Manuel de Mier y Terán on His 1828 Inspection of Texas, p. 79.
“literally shot to pieces”: JWP, p. 6.
“an honest man”: Character Certificate, July 20, 1833, 2F 192 (Taulman).
“an Enemy to truth”: Reverend Bing, undated handwritten note, Daniel Parker Papers 3G 479 (Briscoe).
“the most fertile, most healthy”: JWP, p. 63.
“forests of cast iron”: Washington Irving, A Tour of the Prairies, p. 113.
They shot the two chiefs: Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas XIV, p. 72. For description of tension
s, see also Jack Selden, Return, pp. 22–4.
“If this region was not infested”: JWP, p. 70.
“to destroy my reputation”: “Defense of James W. Parker,” p. 5 (Bancroft).
The settlers had no nails: See museum displays at Old Fort Parker, Groesbeck, Texas.
“to secure the inhabitants”: Telegraph and Texas Register, October 26, 1835.
winter of 1836 was a desperate time: Typescript ms. by Morris Swett, Fort Sill librarian who collected Comanche oral folklore (Fort Sill, Swett File Collection B1 F3).
Daniel signed his name: Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin.
“To our minds this was a far more trying time”: A. D. Gentry, “The Runaway Scrape,” Frontier Times, p.9.
“for the purpose of Killing the white people”: Daniel Parker handwritten statement, June 18, 1836 (Taulman).
“voices that seemed to reach the very skies”: Rachel Plummer, Narrative of the Capture and Subsequent Sufferings, 1839, p. 6. The details of the massacre are from Plummer, pp. 5–8, and JWP, pp. 9–11.
2. The Captives
“We were in the howling wilderness”: JWP, pp. 12–13.
“dressed in white with long, white hair”: “The Charmed Life of Abram Anglin,” Groesbeck Journal, May 15, 1936, p. 5.
“We found the houses still standing”: JWP, pp. 14–15.
“feelings of the deepest mortification”: Plummer, pp. 7–8.
“abandon once more the habitations of civilized men”: Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, p. 430.
clad in native garb: Grant Foreman, Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, p. 184.
“jealous, envious, dissipated”: Lawrence E. Honig, John Henry Brown: Texas Journalist, p. 11.
“Your enemies and ours are the same”: Thomas W. Kavanagh, Comanches: A History, p. 251.
“All argument failed”: JWP, p. 17.
“with mingled feelings of joy”: Ibid., pp. 18–9.
“something inexpressibly lonely”: Irving, p. 162.
Comanches called themselves Nemernuh: T. R. Fehrenbach, Comanches: The History of a People, p. 31; also Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains, pp. 25–8.
“most horrible attire”: Gerald Betty, Comanche Society, p. 122.
“the largest and most terrible nomadic nation”: Jean-Louis Berlandier, The Indians of Texas in 1830, p. 114.
“a vast hinterland of extractive raiding”: Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, p. 182.
Rachel Plummer never said: This account of her captivity, including her baby son’s murder, is from Plummer, pp. 9–18.
“Its light turned the evening mist”: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove, p. 285.
the country’s first indigenous literary genre: Gary L. Ebersole, Captured by Texts, p. 10.
“the special demonic personification”: Slotkin, Regeneration, p. 4.
“Their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit”: Mary White Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, p. 7.
“the tresses of this lady were shining”: James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, pp. 16–17 and 109–10.
“This intelligence kindled anew”: JWP, pp. 22–3.
She would soak the hides to soften: Marcus Kiek, “Brain-Tanned Buffalo Hide.”
The dead bison provided food, hardware, clothing: “Skinning and Butchering a Bison,” PPHM video presentation.
“It was the sweetest stuff”: T. A. “Dot” Babb obituary, undated (PPHM).
“The squaws did all the manual labor”: T. A. Babb, In the Bosom of the Comanches, pp. 39–40.
“if she attempted again to force me”: Plummer, p. 17.
“You are brave to fight”: Ibid., p. 19.
Humans became just one more commodity: Michael Tate, “Comanche Captives,” pp. 231–4.
forced to scrape and clean her own dead mother’s scalp: J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, p. 401.
“trained, from infancy to age, to deeds of cruelty: Carl Coke Rister, Border Captives, p. 68.
“all females were chattels”: Fehrenbach, p. 287. For a conflicting view, Joaquin Rivaya-Martínez, “Becoming Comanches.”
“The sweeping generalizations by Dodge and Fehrenbach”: Gregory and Susan Michino, A Fate Worse Than Death, p. 473.
Bianca produced an unpublished memoir: Her account finally appeared in print fifty-three years after her death: “‘Every Day Seemed to Be a Holiday’: The Captivity of Bianca Babb,” Daniel J. Gelo and Scott Zesch, eds.
3. The Uncle
“No man can regret”: Sam Houston, The Writings of Sam Houston, pp. 53–4.
Still, James persisted: The ambush is narrated in JWP, pp. 24–7.
Houston was no city: For details of the five capitals and the executive mansion, see Selden, Return, p. 106, and Exley, pp. 79–80.
“Calling me a fool and a mad man”: Parker to Houston, June 6, 1837 (TSL).
“flog those Indians”: Houston, p. 36.
the truce did not last long: Selden, p. 89.
“As soon as the opportunity presented itself”: JWP, p. 30.
“Had I the treasures of the universe”: Plummer, p. 28. For her account of her rescue and return to her family, see pp. 27–30.
Her appearance was “most pitiable”: James W. Parker, p. 31.
“The prejudice existing”: Petition, 1840, Star of the Republic Museum Archive.
He went into hiding: Exley, pp. 99–101.
“My success engendered malice”: Parker, “Defense,” p. 6.
“feeling assured that before they are published”: Plummer, pp. 31–3.
“This life had no charms”: JWP, p. 32.
Wilson died two days later: Exley, p. 104.
“John Parker and Sinthy Ann”: Petition, November 22, 1840 (Star of the Republic).
a wild scheme to raise an army: Exley, p. 106.
“If the wild cannibals of the woods”: Indian Relations in Texas (TSL).
intimate enemies: Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 101.
the centrality of attacks on women and children: see Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, p. 48.
The elderly Cherokee leader: see Gary Anderson, The Conquest of Texas, p. 179.
“Her head, arms, and face were full of bruises”: Mary A. Maverick, Memoirs, p. 44. This account of the Council House massacre is largely from her memoir, from Fehrenbach, pp. 322–9, and from “Hugh McLeod’s Report on the Council House Fight,” March, 20, 1840 (TSL).
“These the Indians made free with”: Handbook of Texas Online.
“The bodies of men, women, and children”: Fehrenbach, pp. 347–8.
“The two cousins … exulted”: Foreman, p. 285.
“He then asked if he had a father”: JWP, p. 36.
“It evinces a degree of heartlessness”: Houston, pp. 180–1.
“holding correspondence with suspicious characters”: Exley, p. 118.
“My time is at hand”: “Biography of Daniel Parker,” 3G 749 (Daniel Parker Papers).
“lamented that thear was many”: Exley, pp. 123–5.
“I wish to make this public”: JWP letter, Texas National Register, June 26, 1845, p. 231.
“we believe the church has bin … unjustly implecated”: Records, p. 156.
4. The Rescue
Williams sought to purchase her: Hacker, p. 30.
“she continued to weep incessantly”: Exley, p. 134.
“she is unwilling to leave the people”: “Texas Indians—Report of Butler and Lewis,” p. 8.
The birth process was a communal event: Wallace and Hoebel, pp. 142–4.
“She shook her head in a sorrowful negative”: James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker, p. 32.
“She seemed to be separated”: Rupert N. Richardson, “The Death of Nocona,” p. 15.
The cavalry, stretched thin: Ranald S. MacKenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas, 1871–7
5, p. 4.
Ford joined forces with Shapley Prince Ross: Exley, p. 139.
“with both eyes shot out”: Recollections of B. F. Gholson, p. 9, 2Q 519 (Briscoe).
the worst moment came that November: See account in Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum, Myth, Memory and Massacre, pp. 22–3. Carlson and Crum offer the most painstaking and definitive account to date of the Pease River massacre and myth, and I rely on them for my own.
“an Indian scalp thoroughly salted”: J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight, pp. 50–1.
“a fine horseman and a good shot”: This and other descriptions of Ross: Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator, pp. 45–50.
“killed every one of them”: Haley, p. 55.
“Sul ran up to him”: Gholson, p. 29.
“They had to force her away”: Felix Williams interview with Frank Gholson, August 26, 1931, p. 20 2Q 519 (Briscoe).
the woman “was so dirty you could hardly tell”: Recollections of H. B. Rogers, p. 2, Ibid.
“I’m greatly distressed about my boys”: Gholson interview, p. 12 (Briscoe).
“We rode right over her dead companions”: Haley, p. 56.
the volunteers found only four dead bodies: Dallas News, November 28, 1937; see also Carlson and Crum, p. 5.
killing a chief named Mohee: Carlson and Crum offer the most thorough account on pp. 70–8.
“this Pease River fight … made Sul Ross governor”: Walter C. Cochran, Reminiscences, p. 11.
“The fruits of this important victory”: E. E. White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, p. 263; also pp. 271–2.
5. The Prisoner
the child never cried: Susan Parker St. John Notebook, p. 4, 2F 260 (Taulman).
“would be a waste of the materials”: Selden p. 176.
she looked and smelled like a savage: Gholson, p. 40.
“It was a race”: Gholson interview, p. 18.
she was a wild Indian: Marion T. Brown, Letters from Fort Sill, p. 78.
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