Stateline 1203 Master Script

BOOTH

THE HALF-BREED SON OF A NOTED COMANCHE CHIEF AND A WHITE CAPTIVE, QUANAH PARKER MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT INDIAN LEADER MANY AMERICANS HAVE NEVER HEARD OF.

IN THE FIRST HALF OF HIS CAREER, HE LEAD ONE OF THE MOST FIERCE AND NOTORIOUS BANDS OF PLAINS INDIAN HOLDOUTS.

BUT BY 1875, WITH HIS COMMUNITY’S FOOD SOURCES BEING DEPLETED AND LAND BEING CONFISCATED BY THE UNITED STATES, PARKER SURRENDERED--AND ACTUALLY HELPED SETTLE HIS FELLOW COMMANCHES, ALONG WITH APACHES AND KIOWAS, ON A RESERVATION IN WHAT IS NOW SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA.  HE WAS APPOINTED PRINCIPAL CHIEF OF THE COMMANCHES BY THE GOVERNMENT.

A PRACTICAL MAN WHO SAW THE PROVERBIAL WRITING ON THE WALL, QUANAH PARKER HELPED PRESERVE COMANCHE CULTURE, WHILE NEGOTIATING A PLACE FOR INDIANS IN AN INCREASINGLY WHITE NORTH AMERICA.

ON THIS STATELINE HISTORY SPECIAL, THE LIFE OF THE MAN WHO, AS GENTLY AS POSSIBLE, LED HIS PEOPLE ONTO THE WHITE MAN’S ROAD.

TRT

Centuries ago the land of the Comanches stretched over 250-thousand miles. The tribe followed the buffalo on foot from Kansas to Central Texas, then when horses came to the continent with the Spanish in the 1600’s the Comanches quickly became the greatest horsemen in the Americas. Their freedom seemed as endless as the plains, but the only thing truly endless was the number of settlers and soldiers moving west into their lands. Fort Sill in Southwestern Oklahoma would be the end of the trail for the Comanches. The last band of warriors to come onto the reservation would be lead by Quanah Parker. A man who would transition his people from their ancient traditions to a world of the white mans making.

Don Parker

13:30:15   S-201   C0069

He was sort of a man of two worlds. He was the last leader of the group called the Quhadas that came into Fort Sill. And he was the first to pick up or understand the demands of modern society. And I think for that vision realizing that our people had to live in another world, that he became even a greater man. He had a lot of foresight.

Every year the Parker family meets at the site of Quanah’s home at Ft Sill to celebrate their most famous forebear.

Baldwin Parker Jr.

9:39:43    S-201   C0031

I think I am the oldest living grand son there is. I am 91 years old.

Baldwin Parker Jr.

9:39:31   S-201   C0031

It is always a thrill to me to be here on this ground to celebrate.

Don Parker

13:36:54   S-201   C0069

Well we do this as an annual event. And we believe that by sharing the culture of the Comanche people and particularly Quanah parker to share with the world that this was a man of prominence.

Quanah Parker’s story begins in May, 1836, only two months after the fall of Alamo. A band of Comanches attacked Fort Parker in the Piney Woods of North Central Texas. Most of the men and women at the fort were killed, among those captured by the Comanche was a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes named Cynthia Anne Parker.

William Welge

9:31:07    S-520   C0002

The elder member of the Parker family was killed immediately Cynthia Anne who was nine years old at the time and her younger brother John who was three years younger than she were picked up by a warrior, a Comanche warrior.

The little girl lived as a Comanche, and at the age of 17 she married a Peta Nacona, a warrior who would become the leader of the Quhadas. Together they had three children, Quanah, Pecos and Little Prairie Flower.

William Welge

9:34:17    S-520   C0002

Quanah grows to a young man it is very important in most Indian cultures especially on the plains whether it is Comanche or Cheyenne, or Kiowa to prove themselves. To be considered an important individual who may have an important contribution to the tribe to serve as a warrior and you have to prove yourself in battle.

William Welge

9:34:48    S-520   C0002

And so very early he began to accompany bands out on war parties that would either capture from the western settlements of Texas or even as far south as Mexico.

Ardith Leming Parker 

12:54:28    S-201    C0065

And he was a great warrior. / I heard stories where he would ride; they would ride when they were on a raid. In a circle around a camp / and they would all circle one time to show whoever they were raiding how impressive they could ride a horse. And they were taking a chance, and instead of going one round around whoever they were raiding, probably a camp, he would go two rounds, so more than the others.

William Welge

9:42:20    S-520   C0002

It was considered an act of extreme bravery when you were up against odds of the enemy shooting at you, either with bows and arrows early on and ten latter as they acquired guns, for you to take your war club or your lance and touch your enemy somewhere on their body.

Don Parker

13:33:34   S-201   C0069

Quanah Parker he was a, seemed to be a noble, intelligent type of warrior. He seemed to understand the warfare, to understand the enemy. He of course leading a group of people, women and children and to ensure their safety.

William Welge

9:36:32    S-520   C0002

He also was also well suited for battle. He learned all the techniques that the Comanches would teach him. Even though he was part white he was accepted by the Comanches because of his father. His father being a notable warrior and leader of the Quahadi band of the Comanches. So he was able to make that transition and was not ostracized by the Comanche people, because of him being part white.

By 1865 white settlement into the southwest slowed because of constant raids by the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache. Texas Rangers were formed to drive the Comanche out of the state.

William

9:43:46    S-520   C0002

When Captain Saul Ross of the Texas Rangers came up, up on the camp. 

William Welge

9:44:30    S-520   C0002

Attacked the camp killing mostly women and children. Cynthia Ann had Prairie flower her youngest child, and of course there was a separation at this point all the men the warriors were out raiding at this time. So Peta Nacona was not in the camp and of course Quanah was not in camp.

William Welge

9:45:21    S-520   C0002

Cynthia Anne came with in a hairs breath of being killed herself. But when her shawl came away from her hair and they saw and they saw that she had blond hair cut short and pale. 

William Welge

9:45:59    S-520   C0002

That was when the realized who they thought they may have found, and took her back to civilization.

Quanah and his brother escaped during the raid, but never saw their parents again.

William Welge

9:46:27    S-520   C0002

And so she spent three years before her death in white captivity. She tried on several occasions to escape, and go back to her own people, because she was more ingrained with the Comanche way of life than she was with the white way of life. 

William Welge

9:46:55    S-520   C0002

When her daughter prairie flower was only two at the time of her capture began to become ill and died in 1864. It was at that point that Cynthia Ann, Realizing that she would never see her Comanche people again, she basically began to stop eating and wanted to die. So she was only what not quite 40 years old when she died in 1864, never seeing her family again.

After years of failing to subdue the Indians, Lieutenant Coronel Randal McKenzie was sent by the army to break the Comanches once and for all. McKenzie and his men ruthlessly pursued Quanah Parker through Oklahoma but lost them along the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle,

William Welge

9:51:06    S-520   C0002

He was recognized by his people as a warrior. Because of his exploits in going in raiding parties, he had been wounded several times in various raiding parties, including the battle of adobe walls in 1874 in the pan handle of Texas.

William Welge

10:09:27    S-520    C0004

There were some enterprising business men out there out of Dodge City. Charles Wrath and a couple of other folks. Who wanted to take advantage of the southern buffalo herds. They had pretty much from the early 1870's buffalo hunters in west central Kansas and Nebraska had pretty much decimated the herd.

William Welge

10:09:54    S-520    C0004

And the last large herds that were to be found were to be found in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. So in order for the to continue the effort to send and ship buffalo hides back, back east, especially the fur was highly prized, they decided to build a facility in the Texas Panhandle.

In 1874 the buffalo hunters built a stockade called the adobe walls. Here they would kill the buffalo, take the hides and send them north on the Jones and Plumber trail through what is now the city of Beaver, Oklahoma. From Beaver the hides would go to Dodge City where they would be sent on trains to the east.

William Welge

10:11:36    S-520    C0004

It was a very profitable trade. What infuriated not only the Comanches, The Kiowas, the Cheyenne’s and the Arapahos was that this was their food source.

William Welge

10:12:14    S-520    C0004

There were still bands of Kiowas and Comanches that had not been able to be subdued by the military and placed on reservations. And The Quahadi or Quanah’s band was one of those. When they found out that there was this stockade being built and that they were killing buffalo they developed a strategy to attack.

William Welge

10:13:07    S-520    C0004

In June it was late May Early June 1874, when the Comanches came up on to the stockade and for several days attacked it. It was a well fortified Stockade There was maybe 25 people. Mostly hunters there were a couple of women who were there.

When the Indians arrived they came upon hunters outside the walls and lost the advantage of surprise.

Ardith Leming Parker 

12:55:41    S-201    C0065

They didn't expect that to happen, and because they thought they were going to attack by surprise it didn't happen that way and it was sad because in a way he was just fighting to maintain the land and the buffalos which was our survival for all of his people. And the only way we could live and survive was just to keep the buffalo, and we didn't want people running us off of our land. Well, that's all he was fighting for. But instead a lot of people got killed because it wasn't a surprise when he attacked.

William Welge

10:14:27    S-520    C0004

In the course of the raid by the Comanches and the Kiowas. Quanah was wounded. He couldn't believe since he was behind a set of rocks. Some distance away that he was shot in the shoulder but from behind. And he thought there might be special medicine that the whites had that a bullet could go past him and then hit him.

William Welge

10:15:05    S-520    C0004

It remained a mystery until someone realized that it was a ricochet off a rock behind Quanah that a bullet came and wounded him.

William Welge

10:16:09    S-520    C0004

What really caused the Comanches and Kiowas to leave after several days they were making no head way as far as destroying the stockade or killing any other individuals with in the stockade. Was when they were holding a council. And Ashiah the medicine mans horse was killed by a bullet from more than a mile away. And yet they were hidden by a hill and this really perplexed them and this is what caused them to say they were not gong to be able to attack any more. So the dispersed and left.

After the battle the buffalo hunters packed up and moved back to Dodge City.

William T. Hagan

10:08:28    S-402   C0002

Well that was a last effort of the Indians in that area to resist.

Don Parker

13:34:14   S-201   C0069

They didn't prevail, they didn't win. But they say in that battle he was real brave. In fact their is a song that they use about that, “Adobe walls.”

Don Parker

13:35:22   S-201   C0069

(ADOBE WALLS SONG) That was his song, and it just somehow protected him from harm, from injury.

William Welge

10:17:22    S-520   C0004

At the time General Randal S. Mackenzie sent out troops to finally bring in these recalcitrant tribes. To sub due them and put them on the reservation.

Deep in the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle, McKinzey and his men burned the Comanche camps and shot 1,400 Indian horses. On the second of June, 1875 Quanah Parker and 400 Quaharena warriors surrendered at Ft. Sill.

William T. Hagan

10:02:48    S-402   C0002

Well they were bands and Bands of varying sizes. But had a head man. But until the tribe was on the reservation and the government wanted to deal with as few people as possible.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:52:08    S-201    C0065

They said "We noticed that one man among all of these chiefs that stands out among all the rest. And we would like to appoint him and to talk to him do the negotiating through him because he negotiates well with his own people and they will talk to them and they will listen to him."

William T. Hagan

10: 09:23    S-402   C0002

And he couldn't be swindled in the same way that Indians who were less educated or less appraised of the values but he knew how to deal with white people.

William Welge

10:18:03    S-520   C0004

They were at camp. They were not incarcerated at Fort Sill but they were close enough for the troops to keep an eye on them of course their horses were taken away. Their armament was destroyed. So they were issued rations by the military.

William Welge

10:20:16    S-520   C0004

For generations and really Eons of time they had roamed freely on the plains following the buffalo herd and raiding and warring against other tribes.

William

10:21:21    S-520   C0004

They were forced to conform to white society.

William Welge

10:22:03    S-520   C0004

They were expected to have their children go to school; learn English take up the hoe instead of having the horse. Become farmers and or learn a trade.

William T. Hagan

10:21:28    S-402   C0002

Well what they did ultimately was to divide up their reservation and give some where between 150 to 200 acres to each Indian and then the surplus land was open for settlement.

William T. Hagan

10:22:52    S-402   C0002

They had always been nomadic people. The last thing they wanted was to be tied down to 100 acres of land and have to cultivate it. As a result what they usually did was lease their land to white farmers and derive enough without working it themselves. They couldn't live lavishly obviously but they had the freedom to travel.

Ron Parker

9:55:35    S-201    C0034

He adjusted well from that way of life. From a free way of life to you know in one place, but again I don't know how he did it. It speaks well of Quanah to what he really was a very strong man.

William T. Hagan

10:00:14    S-402   C0002

Well he had this white connection which made him important in terms of dealing with Americans. And once they were put on the reservation. There was nothing that those Indians liked more than going to Washington. They would go on a train to Washington and be taken out to restaurants and meet prominent people. You know they were curiosities in Washington.

Parker saw the hard road ahead would be easier if he could help his people adjust to the new way of life.

Ron Parker

9:56:24    S-201    C0034

He just went from a warrior to a statesmen.

William Welge

10:24:43    S-520   C0004

Well he was able to see the handwriting on the wall as far as what was going to occur for his people. And he felt like even the only way even though he definitely somewhat a product of his environment and always wanted to have the freedom of always being able to have the movement, and have the way of life that he had before the reservation period. He saw that that was no longer going to be the case.

Parker could not read or write, but he could understand and speak some English, and he knew how to make a deal.

William T. Hagan

10:10:26    S-402   C0002

Well the cattlemen were losing out in Texas settlers were coming in and occupying the land. And so the best land available to them was to the north.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:57:10    S-201    C0065

Cattlemen that had to drive their cattle through, even for grazing, they didn't have no land so they would just start driving it looking for land. And they would ask Indian people "Hey this is Indian land." And I guess they thought they could just put their cattle anywhere and let them graze as they were driving them.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:57:31    S-201    C0065

And so the Indians went to the agency and said "Hey, they're...its illegal what they are doing, we're going to start charging them." So Quanah negotiated with the cattle men to be able to have leases with all the Indian people to be able to get some price for all the head, herds of cattle that came through.

William T. Hagan

10:10:50    S-402   C0002

Quanah recognized the value of leasing so he was happy to cooperate on that if he were paid properly.

Parker had the cattlemen build him a home at Post Oak Mission. Today his descendants gather in the shadow of the Star House.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:51:08    S-201    C0065

The Stars on the house meant to Quanah it was a symbols status of authority, like for the Generals. He admired one of the Generals houses and he said I would like stars on my house. So he asked Burnett and them to put those stars on his house. 

William Welge

10:37:30    S-520   C0004

He was friends with several cattlemen who were from Texas, Dan Wagner, Burk Burnett, and Charles Goodnight. It was supposedly Charles Goodnight who was there with Saul Ross when they repatriated Cynthia Ann Parker.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:51:40    S-201    C0065

So yes he was very proud of his home. And some of the ranchers helped build that house. It was like the White House to the Comanche people.

At the long dining table Parker played host to a who’s who of history.

Ardith Leming

Parker

12:41:20    S-201    C0062

Quanah was always entertaining and he was very hospitable and he entertained very many dignitaries. Here is a list of some of the people like the British ambassador, Texas cattlemen kings, Army officers, Apache chiefs’, Comanche, Kiowa chiefs, and Sioux chiefs.

William Welge

10:23:42    S-520   C0004

Oh well several times he went to Washington and around the turn of the century after 1900 he was introduced to President Theodore Roosevelt. And Roosevelt was so enamored with Quanah, and of course Roosevelt was someone at heart who loved the west even though he was born in New York State.

William Welge

10:24:12    S-520   C0004

In fact visited southwest Oklahoma and visited with Quanah in his home near Cache in 1905. So they became friends for the rest of Quanah’s life.

William Welge

10:33:38    S-520   C0004

Quanah was also friends with Bill Tillman. And there is one of the earliest movies to be shot in Oklahoma it is called the bank robbery it was about 1903.

William Welge

10:34:14    S-520   C0004

It is only a 20-25 minute film but in the film as one of the posse going after the bank robber is Quanah Parker. You have to watch it. If you slow the film down here is a old, older Quanah parker, only about 7 or 8 years left of his life. Riding as if stately on a horse wearing a cowboy hat but his braids on either side. Going as one of the posse. So he is in that film.

Towana Spivey

10:02:49   S-201     C0035

This is the old well for Star house, known as an excellent source of water. It was really well known. People came here just to drink this water. What is of particular interest here is it is one of the land marks of the original house location. Around the masonry curb you can still see his cattle brand embedded in the masonry the circle within a circle and the date is 1897 is there. This becomes important for many reasons confirming what his cattle brand really was for one thing. In addition to photographs that we see of his horses.

Towana Spivey

10:03:32   S-201     C0035

A very nice, very large facility that was used by him as his headquarters for his ranch, his home place, he had seven wives maximum at least.

Ardith Leming

Parker Leming

12:46:16    S-201    C0064

O-k, this room was occupied by Conasa His favorite wife. Some of his last surviving wife and his relatives have said that It wasn't so much that she was a favorite wife. She was the only one that didn't bare children and that was probably the reason why she was able to go a lot of places with him. Like to Washington D.C. And I think she also was a translator. So he dressed her in American clothes and a lot of the pictures that you see are mostly with her.

When the Federal Government tried to do away with polygamy among the tribes they picked Colonel James Randelett to tell Quanah he could only have one wife.

William Welge 

10:27:58    S-520   C0004

Quanah sagely said “You tell me which one I throw away.” And with that kind of logic the Indian agent never brought up the subject again. And he kept his wives. So he had several and multiple children. And it makes it unique in the annals of American history that there are two family reunions the white Parker side and the Comanche Parker side and have continued to have reunions for multiple years.

Ron Parker

9:52:50 S-201    C0034

My grand mother lived with Quanah when they first got married. But they said that he was. I always wondered how he got along with all the wives. But they respected him. He somehow managed I don't know how he did that with so many wives but he some how managed to have that many wives and get along with all of them.

William Welge

10:46:04    S-520   C0004

Quanah Parker is also noted for trying to encourage and trying to get into law the Native American church of peyote. So in 1906 he actually went to Guthrie the territorial capital and addressed the constitutional convention on that issue.

Ron Parker

9:57:41    S-201    C0034

I think he brought it from Texas. He was healed down in Texas. Somewhere they healed him. And he was so amazed by what they did with this peyote he brought some back. And that is kind of how it got started.

Ron Parker

9:51:36 S-201    C0034

He had seven wives and he had a lot of children a lot of grand children.

Like any father Parker wanted his children to be prepared for the future.

Ron Parker

9:54:54 S-201    C0034

It was important to him, in fact he had a school right down the road there. When they first came in the children couldn’t go to Cache School, so he started his own school. Because he wanted them to go to school, they finally, eventually were able to go to Cache and go other places.

Don Parker

13:31:31   S-201   C0069

He served on the Cache's board of education. He seemed to envision the need for making this demand for modern society to do it the best was to learn it and become educated.

Family was always important to the last chief of the Comanches and he never forgot the woman that gave him his last name.

William Welge

10:41:10    S-520   C0004

A few months before he died he felt very driven to have his mothers remains removed from Texas. She had been buried in Henderson county Texas in the cemetery when she passed away in 1864 along with her daughter Prairie Flower.

William Welge

10:42:23    S-520   C0004

Quanah and his mother and his sister he never knew are buried at Chiefs’ knoll along with some other notable Chiefs’ of the plains tribes on Fort Sill Property.

William Welge

10:49:17    S-520   C0002

When he died there were no others that took his place. To my knowledge. And it has only been since the early 1970s when the reconstitution of the tribal governments and Indian sovereignty has become more prevalent that election of tribal leaders have occurred and of course today they don't call the tribal leader of the Comanche Nation “Chief.”

A grandson of Quanah Parker was a Comanche code talker and landed on Utah beach on D-day, carrying on the warrior spirit. Today the family keeps the traditions alive, ready to pass on a legacy of honor and strength to the next generation.

Ardith Leming Parker

12:58:28    S-201    C0066

It is just something for us to go out there and gather as family, and remembering him exactly where he lived and what all he saw from his visions and his visions for our people. We go back there in memory of him.

Ron Parker

9:50:40    S-201    C0034

My name is Parker and I never even thought about that. But you think about my name and how it came about, Parker, it came from a little girl that was captured. He wanted his mother's name, he took his mother's name and that's why I'm a Parker.

TRT

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QUANAH PARKER IS NOT UNIVERSALLY REVERED BY INDIAN PEOPLE.  HE DREW PARTICULAR CRITICISM DURING HIS LIFETIME NOT ONLY FOR HIS CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH PEOPLE MANY INDIANS BELIEVED TO BE THEIR ENEMIES, BUT FOR ACCEPTING THE GOVERNMENT’S APPOINTMENT AS CHIEF OVER ALL THE COMMANCHES WITHOUT BEING SELECTED BY THE PEOPLE HE REPRESENTED.

TRADITIONALISTS, DURING HIS LIFE AND SINCE HIS DEATH, SAY HE WAS TOO QUICK TO LEAD HIS PEOPLE DOWN THE WHITE MAN’S ROAD.