Comanche chief4/20/2023 Defeated and disorganized, the Indians retreated and the alliance crumbled. In the end the hunters suffered just one casualty, while fifteen Indians died and numerous others, including Parker, were wounded. From the Indians' point of view, the raid was a disaster their planned surprise was foiled, and the hunters' superior weapons enabled them to fend off repeated attacks. On the morning of June 27, 1874, this alliance of some 700 warriors-Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Comanches-attacked the twenty-eight hunters and one woman housed at Adobe Walls. Determined to maintain their independence, or at least their survival as a people, the Quahadas, under the guidance of Quanah and a medicine man named Isa-tai, formed a multitribal alliance dedicated to expelling the hunters from the plains. As buffalo hunters poured onto the plains, decimating the Indians' chief source of subsistence, Parker and his followers were forced to take decisive action. Mackenzie gave up the search in mid-1872.īut time was on the side of the army. Afterward, the Indians seemingly disappeared onto the plains, only to reappear and attack again. Not only was the army unable to find the Indians but, at Blanco Canyon on the morning of October 9, 1871, the troopers lost a number of horses when Quanah and his followers raided the cavalry campsite. Mackenzie to track and subdue the Indians in 18 failed. Attempts of the Fourth United States Cavalry under Col. There, beyond the effective range of the military, they continued to hunt buffalo in the traditional way while raiding settlements.įor the next seven years Parker's Quahadas held the Texas plains virtually uncontested. These qualities were increasingly in demand when, as a consequence of their refusal to attend the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council or to move to a reservation as provided by the treaty, the Quahadas became fugitives on the Staked Plains. Among them Quanah became an accomplished horseman and gradually proved himself to be an able leader. The raid, which resulted in the capture and incarceration of Cynthia Ann and Quanah's sister Topasannah, also decimated the Noconis and forced Quanah, now an orphan, to take refuge with the Quahada Comanches of the Llano Estacado.īy the 1860s the Quahadas ("Antelopes") were known as the most aloof and warlike of the various Comanche bands. In 1860, however, Peta Nocona was killed defending an encampment on the Pease River against Texas Rangers under Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Despite his mixed ancestry, Quanah's early childhood seems to have been quite unexceptional for his time and place. His father was a noted war chief of the Noconi band of the Comanches. His mother was the celebrated captive of a Comanche raid on Parker's Fort (1836) and convert to the Indian way of life. The name Quanah means "smell" or "odor." Though the date of his birth is recorded variously at 18, there is no mystery regarding his parentage. Nomadic hunter of the Llano Estacado, leader of the Quahada assault on Adobe Walls in 1874 ( see RED RIVER WAR), cattle rancher, entrepreneur, and friend of American presidents, Quanah Parker was truly a man of two worlds. He was a major figure both in Comanche resistance to White settlement and in the tribe's adjustment to reservation life. According to Quanah himself, he was born on Elk Creek south of the Wichita Mountains in what is now Oklahoma, but there has been debate regarding his birthplace, and a Centennial marker on Cedar Lake northeast of Seminole, Texas, in Gaines County, claims that site as Quanah's birth location. Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Quahada Comanche Indians, son of Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, was born about 1845.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |