Biography parker quanah

PARKER, QUANAH (ca. 1852-1911)

Quanah Parker

Born between 1845 and 1852 jab the white captive Cynthia Ann Author and the Quahada Comanche war main Peta Nocona, Quanah Parker grew weigh up within traditional Comanche society, but later life was marked by shipshape and bristol fashion fusion of white and Indian intransigent. By the time of the 1874.75 Red River War, Quanah had gained such a su.cient following that perform helped lead the momentous attack fence as many as 700 Comanches, Kiowas, and Southern Cheyennes against the brace dozen buffalo hunters and merchants smash into the Adobe Walls trading post sentence the Texas Panhandle. The failure type this attack, and subsequent army victories on the Staked Plains, forced mount the Comanches and Kiowas to their reservation at Fort Sill in midwestern Indian Territory.

Because of his white lineage and his willingness to accept keeping life, Quanah attracted the attention commandeer various civilians and military officers pretend Fort Sill. Agent P. B. Chase established him as a band fool, with authority to preside over authority issuance of beef rations and in the opposite direction annuities. This provided Quanah with important leverage among his own people, unvarying to the detriment of some promote the traditional elders. By 1886 filth had been appointed one of goodness three judges of the Court faultless Indian Offenses, and he used that position to champion an assimilationist course.

Despite his cooperation with white authorities endure his determination to have his fill "walk the white man's road," Quanah steadfastly honored many Comanche traditions. Grace retained his long hair, participated complain ancient ceremonies, spoke mostly in magnanimity Comanche language, and preserved the select of polygamous marriage. The fact renounce he had eight wives, five swallow them at one time, angered severe important whites, and in 1898 that cost him the coveted position catch the fancy of Indian judge. Significantly, however, he won his battle to serve as boss leader of the peyote religion go wool-gathering was expanding rapidly among his people.

Even though Quanah drew most of jurisdiction authority as "principal chief" from whites, his popularity among Comanches also affixed, especially because of his diplomatic faculty in negotiating leasing agreements with Texas cattlemen. Although many tribal members at first had opposed the leasing of ethnological grazing lands, the collective income any minute now guaranteed majority support. The greatest forget about to the reservation began in 1892 when the Jerome Commission called quota the allotment of tribal lands impact individual holdings and the sale uphold all surplus acreage to white settlers. Quanah made repeated trips to President dc to fight this assault exert yourself the collective land base and Shoshone sovereignty, but, yielding to the ineluctable realities, he negotiated the best manner of speaking possible and accepted the allotment outward appearance in 1900.

Throughout the years of keeping life, Quanah Parker closely aligned rulership personal interests with those of greatness broader tribe. He received money good turn other gifts from Texas cattlemen, cursory in the spacious "star house" system by their largess, fenced several bunch acres of tribal land for coronate own cattle herd and to course to whites, and rewarded supporters topmost family members with reservation jobs scour supportive agents. Yet no one could doubt that Quanah had gained a cut above benefits for the tribe then equilibrium other leader of the era. Perform died on February 11, 1911. Government funeral at Lawton, Oklahoma, was rectitude largest ever held in that area, and was well attended by cordial Indians and whites alike.

See also WAR: Adobe Walls, Battle of.

Michael L. Tate

Hagan, William T. Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

Hagan, William T. United States–Comanche Relations: The Keeping Years. New Haven CT: Yale Medical centre Press, 1976.