Quanah Parker

Quanah Parker (* late 1840s in Texas ; † February 23, 1911 in Cache, Oklahoma ), son of the white American Cynthia Ann Parker (known among the Comanche as "Naduah" - "Who feels at home with us") and des Comanche chief Nocona ("The Wanderer"; also known as "Tah-con-ne-ah-pe-ah"; called "Peta Nocona" by the whites), was an important Indian leader in the Indian wars , chief of the Comanches, judge, rancher , Farmer, religious leader and politician .

Marriage of parents, birth and childhood

On May 19, 1836 the settlement of the important settler family Parker, " Fort Parker " near Groesbeck (Texas) , was attacked by an Indian alliance of Comanches, Arapaho , Kiowa , Wichita and Caddo . The attack went down in history as the Fort Parker Massacre . Five settlers were killed in the raid. Nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker, her younger brother John, her fifteen-year-old cousin Rachel Plummer and their young son James Pratt Plummer and their aunt Elisabeth Kellogg were abducted.

Cynthia Ann was adopted by a group of Kwahadi Comanches ("sun shadows on the back") and grew up among them until she married a war chief named Noconie at the age of 15 . Nocona ran its own village community of Kwahadi, which named itself after their chief Nokono or Nokoni. Contrary to the custom of the Comanches, Nocona refrained from marrying other concubines, which indicates a love marriage. The couple had three children, the sons Quanah ("lovely scented") and Pekan ("pecan"; called "pecos" by the whites) and the daughter Topsana ("small prairie flower", by the whites Called "Prairie").

On December 18, 1860, the Nokono camp on the Pease River was attacked by a group of Texas Rangers under the command of Lawrence Sullivan Ross . Nocona, his sons and the majority of the male villagers were absent at this time and were hunting. A large part of the villagers present were captured or killed. Ross killed a warrior who was trying to escape with a woman and child. He captured the woman and her daughter, who were Naduah and Topsana. Ross assumed to have killed Chief Peta Nocona, which he also reported to the governor of Texas. This representation was contradicted by the Indian side. According to this, the dead man was a sub-chief named No-Bah. Quanah himself later reported that it was a warrior named Mo-He-Ew.

Naduah and Topsana were given to the Parker family. Topsana died of illness three years later. Naduah, who had repeatedly asked to be allowed to return to her husband, starved herself to death in the early 1870s. Nocona and Pekan were killed in a hunting accident a few years after the fighting on the Pease River. After Nocona's death, the Nokono renamed themselves Detsanayuka because it was not polite to give the name of a deceased person.

Youth and warrior dignity

The young Quanah was considered by contemporaries to be the ideal type of Indian. He towered over the otherwise rather short Comanches in view of the body size. In addition to his unusual appearance, he distinguished himself among his peers through hunting skills and a series of horse thefts , some of which caused sensation .

Between the ages of 14 and 16, Quanah received the warrior title after successfully participating in a battle with a group of Lipan- Apache. Quanah had noticed the Lipan approaching at night and alerted the village community. In the following battle he succeeded in killing a Lipan chief, known to the whites as "Swift Like The Wind", and scalping him despite the ongoing fighting . With the award of the warrior title Quanah was given the name "Cheetah" ("eagle" or "war eagle"). However, he preferred to continue using the Quanah name, adding his mother's family name, Parker, to it.

Marriage and promotion to chief chieftain

Quanah Parker and his wife (1875)

Around 1865–1867, Quanah stopped for the hand of the chief's daughter “Wec-Keah” (“For something on the hunt”). Their origin is not exactly clear. According to some sources, she was the daughter of Quanah's uncle, the chief "Yellow Bear" ("Yellow Bear"). According to other sources, her father was the chief of the Comanches "Bull Bear" ("bull bull - bear").

It was customary among the Comanches to pay a bride price for women in order to receive a promise to marry. Although Quanah offered an above-average bride price for Wec-Keah (eleven horses ), he was outbid by a rival. Quanah and Wec-Keah then fled, accompanied by about 20 other warriors. For about a year, Quanah's gang plundered the area between the Canadian River and the Pecos River , with steady influx of groups from Cheyenne , Arapahos, Kiowas, and especially Kwahadis. After a year, Quanah returned and was allowed to marry Wec-Keah. At that time he owned just over 300 horses and mules and was the leader of several hundred (according to other sources more than 2000) Indians, mainly Kwahadis, which made him the de facto chief of the Kwahadis.

In 1867, Quanah was one of the Comanche chiefs present in the negotiations between the United States government and various Indian tribes that culminated in the Medicine Lodge Treaty . After the negotiations were over, Chief Bull Bear surrendered, resigned his position as chief of the Comanches and went to a reservation . The Comanches then elected Quanah Parker as their new chief.

Participation in the Indian Wars in Texas

In the late 1860s and early 1870s, Quanah united the Comanches with tribal groups of the southern Cheyenne, Arapahos, Kiowas and Kiowa Apaches and opened a series of hostilities against the white settlement of Texas.

The first attacks were directed against the Texan stagecoach lines and the associated stationary facilities. The stagecoach lines ran through the bison grazing grounds and disrupted the herds' walking paths. In addition, they were held responsible by the Indians for the expansion of the settlement in general and the influx of buffalo hunters in particular. As part of the extensive fighting, the Indians gained control of approximately 350 miles of stagecoach lines. About 100 carriages were destroyed, with about 60 drivers, passengers and soldiers and an unknown number of Indians being killed. Nearly all relay stations in Texas and the Oklahoma border area were destroyed and several hundred horses were captured. The property damage amounted to tens of thousands of US dollars .

The second phase of the war was directed against the buffalo hunters and their facilities, which were responsible for the shooting down of hundreds of thousands of animals and the near extermination of the American bison , thereby depriving the Plains Indians of their livelihood. Although the Comanches and their allies succeeded in killing a number of buffalo hunters and destroying several trading posts with significant damage, the Comanche Alliance came under increasing pressure from the continuing persecution by the army and food shortages. On June 27, 1874, Quanah led an attack with 700 Indians on the Adobe Walls trading post , which was repulsed by only 28 buffalo hunters with the help of heavy fortifications and modern weapons, Quanah was shot twice and seriously wounded. After the defeat, the Cheyenne left the Alliance.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Adobe Walls, the Comanches and their allies were pursued by US troops of about four regiments in five groups assigned to engage the Indians in combat, shoot down their herds of horses, and destroy their food supplies Shoot down as many bison as possible. The associations were led by Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie , Col. Nelson A. Miles , Col. John Davidson , Col. George Buell Jr., and Major William Price.

On June 2, 1875, the Comanches surrendered in a hopeless situation in Fort Sill , Oklahoma, and went to a reservation.

Life in the reservation

Quanah Parker as a businessman, judge and politician

Private life

Upon arrival at the reservation, Quanah Parker was named reserve chief. He moved into a spacious house at the foot of the Wichita Mountains and became a successful rancher and farmer . He built 250 acres and owned more than 200 horses and 1,000 cattle.

In addition to Wec-Keah, with whom he had two daughters and three sons, he had married six other women (at times five at the same time) and had a total of 25 children. The names of his concubines were Chony, Mah-Cheeta-Wookey, Ah-Uh-Wuth-Takum, Coby, Toe-Pay and Tonarcy. When the US government banned Indian polygamy , Quanah was given the choice of separating from several women. He immediately decided to continue the marriage to Wec-Keah. Eventually he was allowed to keep all women.

Quanah Parker, together with his wife Wec-Keah, adopted Herman Lehmann , a German who was taken by Indians on a raid and adopted as a child.

Judicial office

Since the American courts did not consider themselves competent for legal questions of the Indians, reservation courts were set up by the Indian agencies. Quanah Parker was appointed presiding judge of the court responsible for the Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Wichita and Caddo reservations in 1886. He received a monthly salary of $ 30. After the establishment of an Indian police force in 1902, he also held the post of sheriff of the cache reservation. In addition, from 1908 he held the position of chairman of the local school district.

politics

Shortly after moving to the reservation, Quanah repeatedly voiced concerns about wanting to represent Texas in the United States Senate . As a half-breed, he considered himself particularly suitable to represent the concerns of both population groups. In the congress one quickly became aware of the chief, whose word had great weight with the Indians, and he was heard on extensive questions from the Indians on the reservations. In this way he achieved, among other things, extensive educational programs for the Indian population.

President Theodore Roosevelt counted Quanah among his personal friends. The two went on numerous hunting trips together and Roosevelt took Quanah's advice on setting up national parks .

Founder of religion

Quanah is considered one of the founders of the Native American Church movement. After being treated with hallucinogenic plants after being wounded at the Battle of Adobe Walls , he had a vision of Jesus Christ and subsequently combined Native American and Christian ideas. The Native American Church (also peyotism or peyote religion) is the most widespread independent syncretistic religion among the indigenous peoples in the USA today .

death

Quanah Parker died on February 23, 1911 on the Cache, Oklahoma reservation. When it became known in Washington of his death , Congress rose for a minute's silence. In Texas, the city of Quanah was named after Quanah Parker.

literature

SC Gwynne: Empire of the Summer Moon. Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History , New York 2010.
Bill Dugan: War Chiefs: Quanah Parker , eBook 2011. ISBN 978-0-06-100449-0
Claire Wilson: Quanah Parker: Comanche Chief (North American Indians of Achievement Series) , Chelsea House, 1992. ISBN 978-0-7910-1702-9
Kurt Klotzbach: The eagle of the Comanches , Fischer, 1981. ISBN 978-3-439-00928-8

Web links

Commons : Quanah Parker - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Parker, Quanah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American Comanche chief
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH	Texas
DATE OF DEATH	February 23, 1911
Place of death	Cache, Oklahoma