Over the years he had honored the memory: Selden, p. 117.
“Make them plenty big, Nancy”: Ibid., p. 179.
“After the lapse of a few moments”: Galveston Civilian, February 5, 1861, quoted in Hacker, p. 28.
“Me Cynthia Ann”: Ibid.
she pleaded with Horace Jones: Brown, p. 78.
They finally arrived in Birdville: Selden, p. 182.
Her “long night of suffering”: Hacker offers various press accounts on pp. 30, 33, and 40.
“people came from near and far” I. D. Parker to DeShields, ca. 1895 (SMU).
“She looked like a squaw” Exley, pp. 170–1.
“I was told of the many futile efforts”: St. John, p. 5.
“As savage-like and dark of complexion”: Taulman, Notebook No. 8, pp. 44–5, 2F 258 (Taulman)
she often sacrificed herself: Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, pp. 14–5.
“Theirs must have been a hard … life” Taulman Notebook No. 8, p. 4.
“When the fire was started”: Parker letter to DeShields.
she bolted for the door: DeShields, “Indian Wars of Texas,” p. 42.
A. F. Corning’s photographic studio: This account is from Araminta Taulman’s interviews with Mrs. R. H. King, July 5 and September 13, 1926; and with Mrs. Turnbill, September 24, 1926 2F 263 (Taulman).
“she took out the kidneys and liver”: I. D. Parker to DeShields.
She interviewed William and Mattie: Details of Susan Parker St. John’s account are from her unpublished notebook, pp. 8–11, 2F 260 (Taulman).
“My heart is crying all the time”. Coho Smith, Cohographs, p. 71.
“She had a wild expression”: Exley, p. 178.
As for James Parker … there is no record: Selden, pp. 282–3.
I.D. Parker … claimed that mother and daughter both died: Parker to DeShields.
Another legend: “Mystery of Prairie Flower, Daughter of Chief, Solved,” Wichita Falls Times, May 3, 1959; also Frank X. Tolbert, “More on Mystery of Topsannah,” Dallas News, October 17, 1960.
An 1870 census: 1870 United States Federal Census in the County of Anderson, State of Texas, Page No. 212 (National Archives Fort Worth).
“Cynthia Ann had united with the Methodist church”: St. John Notebook, pp. 19–20.
“A Romance of the Border”: San Francisco Bulletin, October 26, 1885; also “A Border Romance,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 20, 1884; “Cynthia Ann Parker,” Dallas News, March 4, 1928.
“Strong as buffalo hide”: Jan Reid, “The Warrior’s Bride,” Texas Monthly, February 2003.
“the most unhappy person [he] ever saw”: Araminta Taulman interview with Mrs. J. J. Nunally, 1926, 2F 263 (Taulman).
6. The Warrior
Tseeta … became Quanah … and Pecos became Pee-nah: Aubrey Birdsong, “Reminiscences of Quanah Parker,” 1965 (Fort Sill).
his father became “very morose”: Quanah Parker to Charles Goodnight, n.d. (PPHM).
Quanah was truly on his own: See William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker: Comanche Chief, p. 11. Also Exley, p. 183.
“so vast that I did not find their limit”: Francisco Coronado letter to the king of Spain, October 20, 1541.
“The land is too much”: Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time, p. 1.
A young Comanche male without standing: James F. Brooks, Captives & Cousins, pp. 177–8.
Weckeah elopement tale: Parker family oral history; also White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, pp. 278–88.
“stealing white women is … more lucrative”: Rister, Border Captives, p. 134.
Sand Creek Massacre … sexual mutilation: J. P. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, p. 152.
“Sometimes a Comanche man dreams”: QP Interview with Hugh Scott (Fort Sill).
Putting his skepticism aside: QP to Scott, p. 23.
The “Grand Council” met in a clearing: Stanley Noyes and Daniel J. Gelo, Comanches in the New West, 1895–1908, p. 1.
Behind them was Ten Bears: This account of the Medicine Lodge Treaty comes largely from Henry M. Stanley, My Early Travels and Adventures in America, pp. 261–6.
“The Comanches are not weak and blind”: from Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains. W. C. Vanderwerth, pp. 132–3.
The Indian “must change the road”: Stanley, pp. 271–2.
“I went and heard it”: QP to Scott, p. 23.
the Civil War’s ruthless apostle: The description of Sherman’s life and role is from John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, pp. 378–9, 390.
“The only good Indian”: New York Times, January 29, 1887; Southern Workman, April 21, 1892, p. 63.
“In the end they must be removed”: Sherman to David French Boyd, August 9, 1867, Marszalek, p. 390.
In a two-and-one-half-year period: The casualty toll is from Michino, A Fate Worse than Death, p. 471.
Kiowas killed “several families”: Philip McCusker to General W. B. Hazen, December, 22, 1868, Sherman Papers, p. 478.
Kiowas hauled out to the prairie: W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 114.
Walkley recovered five white captives: S. T. Walkley to Hazen, October 10, 1868, Sherman Papers, pp. 348–9 (OKU).
“the mildest remedy”: Sherman Papers, p. 487.
“If a white man commits murder”: Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire, p. 328.
“the aiders and abettors of savages”: Sheridan’s 1869 report, in Report of the Secretary of War, Vol. I, 1869, p. 48.
“Let us have peace”: Lawrie Tatum, Our Red Brothers, pp. 17–18. Tatum’s experiences at Anadarko are detailed in his book on pp. ix, 25, 30–6, 42–3, 134, 152, and 182.
Mamanti received a vision: Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief, p. 107.
“The poor victims were stripped”: Carter, Tragedies of Cañón Blanco, pp. 81–2.
Sherman pushed on to Fort Sill: Marzsalek, p. 395.
The Kiowa chief quickly shifted into servile mode: Nye, Carbine and Lance, pp. 195–6.
“I answered … that it was a cowardly act”: Stanley F. Hirshson, The White Tecumseh, p. 347.
“Tell my people that I am dead”: See Carter’s account of Satank’s death, pp. 188–91.
His father had been a naval commander: For Mackenzie’s family tree, see Neeley, p. 105.
“the most promising young officer”: Michael D. Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer: A Life of Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, pp. 46–7. See also pp. 52, 71–2, and 106.
Mackenzie generously paid off the $500 debt: Carter, p. 73.
“They trembled and groaned”: This account of the Cañón Blanco attack is Ibid., pp. 166–97. See also Exley, p. 214.
7. The Surrender
buffalo hunters were a breed apart: T. Lindsay Baker and Billy R. Harrison, Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the 1874 Trading Post, p. 29. The gist of this account of the Battle of Adobe Walls is from Baker and Harrison.
Born in West Virginia: The description of Billy Dixon is from Olive K. Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon.
destroying “the Indians’ commissary” T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star, p. 537.
Buffalo were so plentiful: G. Derek West, “The Battle of Adobe Walls 1874,” p. 2.
“I have seen their bodies so thick”: The Recollections of W. S. Glenn, Buffalo Hunter, p. 6 (PPHM).
“The whole country appeared one mass of buffalo”: Richard Irving Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 284.
“where there were myriads”: Tatum, p. 295.
The idea of attacking Adobe Walls: Quanah’s narrative is from “Chief Quanah Parker’s Account of the Battle of Adobe Walls” as told to General Hugh L. Scott, 1897 (Fort Sill). I have blended his story with Dixon’s firsthand story and with Baker and Harrison’s history.
“to act with vindictive earnestness”: Marszalek, p. 397.
A series of fourteen skirmishes: Adrian N. Anderson, “The Last Phase of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie’s 1874 Campaign Against the Comanches,” pp. 72–4.
Mac
kenzie trailed the Comanches: Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer, pp. 151–4.
he set out from Fort Sill: Sturm’s journey is from “The Journal of Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Messenger to the Kwahadi Comanches,” Ernest Wallace, ed.
one of them … took Jones aside: Selden, pp. 1–3.
“I shall let them down as easily”: Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer, p. 168.
8. The Go-Between
“They fed us like we were lions”: Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 229.
the Comanche population had been decimated: James M. Haworth, Reports of Agents in Indian Territory, 1878, pp. 58–9 (KCA).
Quanah volunteered: Pierce, Most Promising Officer, p. 169.
“I understand the heads are now preserved”: Haworth, Reports, p. 274.
Quanah insisted that they not be shipped off: William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, pp. 24–5.
“The plains were literally alive”: Hermann Lehmann, 9 Years Among the Indians, pp. 167–8.
a lone buffalo man named Marshall Sewell: See Scott Zesch, The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier, pp. 215–6.
He “told us that it was useless”: Lehmann, pp. 186–7.
Quanah used a pair of army field glasses: Zesch, p. 220.
“the emergency is pressing”: Nye, p. 250.
The letter was published: Dallas Weekly Herald, June 5, 1875.
“After an Indian custom”: Mackenzie to Isaac Parker, undated (Fort Sill).
“I do not listen to any foolish talks”: Hagan, QP, p. 40.
“all acts … had been considered void”: L. H. Miller to Philemon Hunt, June 4, 1881 (KCA).
The buffalo would emerge again: The Mount Scott buffalo legend is recounted in a display at the Fort Sill Museum.
But the supplies came erratically: Theft and profiteering on the reservation is from Hagan, QP, pp. 18–24.
“The steers were penned in”: “Reminiscence of an Indian Trader,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 14:2, June 1936.
“The herd rushes out”: Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 536.
“the place of putrid meat”: Noyes, p. 86.
By the time Quanah and his hunting party arrived: For QP’s first meeting with Goodnight, see Haley, Charles Goodnight, pp. 306–12.
“I got one good friend, Burk Burnett”: Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief, p. 231.
cattlemen went to work cultivating … Indian leaders such as Quanah: Hagan, QP, pp. 28–38.
9. The Chief
“He was a fine specimen”: Susan Parker St. John Notebook.
“Quanah Parker started the fight”: Neeley, p. 196.
There were many conflicts of interest: Hagan, QP, p. 39.
“they will have a bully good time”: Burk Burnett to QP, October 24, 1908 (Fort Sill).
a large, swarthy, well-dressed man: Fort Worth Gazette, December 23, 1883.
“He certainly was a wonderful friend”: Interview with Knox Beal, April 15, 1938, Neeley Archives (PPHM).
Quanah first proposed the idea: The building of the Star House is in Hagan, QP, pp. 43–4.
“I did not deem it wise”: Thomas J. Morgan to Charles E. Adams, December 18, 1890, Parker Family File (Museum of the Great Plains).
“Geronimo dipped in”: Neda Parker Birdsong as told to Gillett Griswold, Fort Sill Museum Librarian (Fort Sill).
“Comanches on the War-Path”: St. Louis Globe Democrat, March 27, 1886.
“Me and my people have quit fighting”: Quanah to James Hall, April 7, 1887 (OKHS).
A woman … heard the shots: Byron H. Price, “The Great Panhandle Indian Scare of 1891,” pp. 128–29.
Quanah and his moderate … ally, Apiatin: James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, pp. 171–73.
The same kind of panic: Author’s interview with Towana Spivey, Fort Sill archivist, June 11, 2009.
“a savage and filthy practice”: Thomas J. Morgan to U.S. Indian agents, July 21, 1890, Neeley Archive (PPHM).
He even banned Indian participation: See “Thomas Jefferson Morgan” in The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824–1977, p. 200.
“The Indians are destined to be absorbed”: Morgan to Indian agents, December 10, 1889, Neeley Archive.
“kill the Indian and save the man”: Richard White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, p. 113.
“Me no like Indian school”: See “Chief Fought for Progress,” undated (PPHM).
“Like slaves on a plantation”: Hagan, QP, p. 53.
Each wife had a specific set of household duties: David La Vere, Life Among the Texas Indians: The WPA Narratives, pp. 223–24.
“I cannot … ask you to turn him loose”: QP to S. M. McCowan, January 14, 1907, OKHS files.
he met clandestinely: For the fleeing-with-Tonarcy story, see Comanche Ethnography, p. 34. Also, Lena R. Banks Interview, May 5, 1938, WPA 10644, affirmed by Parker family and Towana Spivey in the author’s interviews.
“Now it’s time to kill that white man”: Comanche Ethnography, p. 342.
“one of the finest Indian women in America”: Daily Oklahoman, May 15, 1895, p. 3.
The peyote plant is a small, spineless cactus: Garrett Epps, To an Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial, p. 60.
Peyote worship was a direct result: See Epps and Omer Call Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History.
“The white man goes into his church house”: Hagan, QP, p. 57.
“It is a drug habit”: J. J. Methvin, Reminiscences of Life Among the Indians, p. 177.
“My Indians use what they call pectus”: Hagan, QP, p. 75.
The reporter was clearly fixated: Daily Oklahoman, June 25, 1902, p. 5.
“I am not a bad man”: Quanah Tribune, July 9, 1896 (Fort Sill).
Brown … asked to introduce Isaac: Selden, p. 210.
Ross had killed a warrior named Mohee: John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, p. 42.
“narrative of plain, unvarnished facts”: James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Story of Her Capture, p. v. Other quotes in this section are from the book.
DeShields’s account became enshrined: “Parker Fort Massacre,” in J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, pp. 302–20.
“maudlin, sentimental writers”: Wilbarger, pp. 6–7.
“a popular and trustworthy chief”: Brown, p. 43.
“I sent you plenty of paper”: J. H. Brown to Marion Brown, undated, J. H. Brown Papers, 2 E5 (Briscoe).
“I can scarcely understand anything he says”: Marion T. Brown, Letters from Fort Sill, 1886–1887, p. 33.
The two men sat out in the yard: Ibid., p. 79.
“What will Sul Ross say about Puttack Nocona?”: Ibid., p. 65.
Her father … made no attempt: For discrepancies in J. H. Brown’s book, see pp. 42 and 317.
“No like to come this way”: Marion Brown, p. 63–64.
“Out of respect to the family of General Ross”: See “Cynthia Ann Parker,” an account by QP’s daughter, Neda Birdsong, as told to Paul Wellman, in Barb Wire Times, October 1968.
10. Mother and Son
“The Indian does not want to work”: William T. Hagan, Taking Indian Lands, pp. 42–43.
Commissioner Morgan designated February 8: Hagan, United States-Comanche Relations, p. 166. My account of the Jerome Commission is largely from Hagan and QP’s testimony, September 27, 1892 (KCA).
He felt he had gotten the best deal: Indian Journal, March 15, 1894, p. 4.
“Quanah jumped up in a great rage”: Hugh L. Scott, Some Memories of a Soldier, p. 200.
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock: Kracht, Benjamin R., “Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening.”
Tent cities of 10,000 people each sprang up: Details of the scene of the opening of Oklahoma Tribal lands are from Charles Moreau Harger, “The Government’s Gift of Homes,” Outlook, pp. 907–10.
Theodore Roosevelt … ordered bison heads: Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, p.
630.
a contest between a superior white race: See “The Winning of the West” in Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, pp. 29–62.
“war was inevitable”: Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 116–7 and 273–74.
“a race of heroes”: Slotkin, p. 54.
the Comanche chief was “never forgetful”: Hagan, QP, p. 113.
“Roosevelt’s own Buffalo Bill production”: Brinkley, p. 583.
“fully equipped with Indian clothing”: W. A. Mercer to James F. Randlett, January 18, 1905 (KCA).
“good Indians … most of whom had dipped their hands”: Carter, Tragedies of Cañón Blanco, pp. 79–81.
“Give the red man the same chance”: Hagan, QP, p. 183.
Quanah … wore his six-shooter: Charles H. Sommer, “Quanah Parker: Last Chief of the Comanches,” p. 10.
serenaded by cardinals and mockingbirds: Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, p. 113.
“It was a thoroughly congenial company”: Roosevelt, p. 114.
Roosevelt mentioned the idea: TR’s buffalo repopulation plan is from Brinkley, p. 609; on the buffalo arrival, see p. 626.
“My mother’s job”: Bill Neeley interview with Anna Birdsong Dean, March 27, 1985 (PPHM).
“This is to certify that Quanah”: W. A. Jones to QP, September 23, 1899 (Fort Sill).
“I wish you to go over to Quanah’s”: Hagan, QP, pp. 107–109.
an Interior Department bureaucrat rejected the request: Acting Commissioner to Charles Adams, March 14, 1891, KCA Files; the files contain many similar examples.
“My grandfather never trusted a white man”: Baldwin Parker Jr., “Quanah Parker Lives,” Focus, Autumn 1985, p. 13.
“Painted, brandishing their bows”: Hagan, QP, p. 102.
he had sat down in a train coach: Susan Parker St. John Notebook.
“The real reason is because he is an Indian”: Oklahoman, November 3, 1906.
“You put me in little pen”: Sommer, p. 10.
Quanah was “a most interesting character”: Adam Parker to Susan Parker St. John, undated, Box 2F 197 (Taulman).
“Quanah is a man worth looking at”: “Story by Ex.-Gov. J.P. St. John’s Wife,” Indian School Journal, October 1909, p. 37.
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