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Quanah Parker
1845–1911 · 66 years Tier II
The war leader who learned to lease grass to Texas cattlemen
His mother was taken from Fort Parker in 1836, a girl of eight or nine, and raised Comanche under the name Nadua. Cynthia Ann Parker married the Kwahadi chief Peta Nocona and had three children by him. In December 1860 Texas Rangers under Sul Ross seized her and her infant daughter at the Pease River and returned her to a family she no longer knew. She would not resettle among them. The daughter died of illness in 1863, and Cynthia Ann stopped eating and was dead by March 1871. Peta Nocona died around 1864. Horseback of the Nokoni took in the two surviving sons and taught them to fight. Quanah kept the name his mother had given him — kwana, a smell or an odor — instead of taking a warrior's name.
He went to the Medicine Lodge negotiations in October 1867 as an observer and would not sign. On June 27, 1874, roughly 250 Comanche and Cheyenne warriors, promised protection from bullets by the medicine man Isatai'i, attacked the buffalo hunters' post at Adobe Walls and were driven off by long-range Sharps rifles. His horse was shot from under him at 500 yards, and a ricochet off a powder horn lodged near his neck. The raid brought on the Red River War. On September 28, 1874, Ranald Mackenzie destroyed the Comanche camp in Palo Duro Canyon and shot nearly 1,500 horses. The Kwahadi came into Fort Sill in the first days of June 1875. Everything after that was a second career — grazing leases, grass payments, a peyote church, silent films, and a deputy sheriff's badge in Lawton in 1902.
The Comanche never elected him. The federal government appointed him principal chief of the whole nation once the people were on the reservation, then treated the appointment as a mandate. He refused monogamy and Protestant Christianity, took eight wives, fathered or adopted 25 children, and built a two-story house at Cache with a bedroom for each wife. He sat for photographs in a business suit and wore his hair long and in braids. From 1880 he built herds alongside Texas cattlemen — Burk Burnett, Charles Goodnight — and in 1884 the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache tribes received their first grass payments. The money came from renting out the reservation they had been forced onto. When Theodore Roosevelt came to hunt wolves with him in April 1905, Quanah argued for keeping 400,000 acres the government meant to sell to homesteaders. He lost.
He died at Star House on February 23, 1911, at 66, of what the New York Times reported as pneumonia, and was buried at the Post Oak Mission Cemetery near Cache. In 1957 he was moved to Chief's Knoll at Fort Sill along with his mother and the sister who had died at three. The headstone reads Last Chief of the Comanches, born 1852 — a year nobody can confirm and one he did not use himself. The title stuck partly because the office did not survive him: after 1911 the Comanche were led by a chairman. Star House went on the National Register in 1970. The half-moon ceremony he taught became the Native American Church.
Lifespan
Quanah Parker's life against the full span of the corpus.
Notable works
-
Comanche, Kiowa and Apache grazing leases
other
The first grass payments to the three tribes, largely his doing 1884 -
Quanah Parker Star House
building
His two-story house at Cache, on the National Register since 1970 — -
The half-moon peyote ceremony
other
The form he taught, carried forward by the Native American Church — -
The Bank Robbery
film
One of several silent films he appeared in 1908
Life in brief
with age at each point- c. 1845 aged ~0 Born to Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker
- December 1860 aged ~15 Texas Rangers seize his mother at the Pease River She had been Comanche for 24 years and refused to resettle. She was dead by March 1871.
- October 1867 aged ~22 Attends the Medicine Lodge treaty talks as an observer and refuses to sign
- June 27, 1874 aged ~29 Leads the attack on the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls His horse was shot at 500 yards and a ricochet lodged near his neck. The raid failed.
- September 28, 1874 aged ~29 Mackenzie destroys the Palo Duro Canyon camp and shoots nearly 1,500 horses
- June 1875 aged ~30 Brings the Kwahadi Comanche in to Fort Sill The end of the nomadic life on the southern plains.
- 1884 aged ~39 The tribes collect their first grass payments for grazing rights
- April 1905 aged ~60 Theodore Roosevelt visits Star House and hunts wolves with him Quanah used the visit to argue against selling 400,000 acres to homesteaders, and lost.
- February 23, 1911 aged ~66 Dies at Star House at 66
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