One hundred and seventy seven years ago today…
On May 19, 1836, just a few months after Texas had won its independence, an unusual coalition of Woodland and Plains tribes showed up at the gate of the fort. Several hundred angry Kiowas, Caddos and Comanches approached Ft. Parker with a white flag. They demanded water for their horses, and cattle to butcher. They were in no mood to suffer fools. But enough water and cattle to satisfy this throng would have prostrated the village. Benjamin bravely tried to renegotiate, making his very last deal with an Indian. When they did not get the payment they demanded, they began to butcher the Parkers like hogs. They hacked, raped and destroyed, killing and scalping five of the inhabitants including Elder John, Silas and Benjamin Parker and taking two young women and three children with them. Meanwhile 28 desperate survivors threaded through the forest to safety, arriving at Ft. Sam Houston after six days of grueling flight, barefooted and hungry, about the same time that the Comanches and Kiowas gloatingly divided their new white slaves on the infinite expanse of the “Great American Desert.” And an American legend was born. The twenty-five year saga for little nine- year old Cynthia Ann Parker had begun.
It was explained to her by the chief that she had shown mercy to her enemies when they deserved death, and although this was not the Comanche way, her compassion was seen as Godly. Through her violent tirade she ascended from miserable slave to Divine messenger. After every unimaginable violation and humiliation, and eventual acceptance into their convoluted social order, she was unexplainably traded around 21 months later by her new tribe to Mexican Comancheros who ransomed her to a wealthy couple in New Mexico. Perhaps it had always been the plan.
More likely they were intentional decoys, if not a begrudging peace offering.
Sul Ross believed one of his men, a Mexican orderly who
wanted revenge, had killed the great Peta
Nocona, just as he had claimed, forcing the unimaginable conclusion, that the whole tribe
got up and abandoned Nocona and his family and left him to be surrounded and
summarily executed. Yet even his sons were nowhere to be found. Surely they
would have fought to the death to save their parents, had they been anywhere
around. But this never happened.
They assumed from past skirmishes these stragglers would be safe. Whites would rarely kill women and children. Very possibly older, less essential members, ones who were burdensome and wanted to give it up, and perhaps wanted to be sent to the reservation were being granted their wish. The Texans would have to escort their prisoners to the Indian Territory…
If this interests you, do read Gwynn's book on the Comanches; Empire of the Summer Moon. It is the best book ever written on the subject, especially the details about one of my all time heroes... Quanah Parker.
Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter Prairie Flower.
The most intrepid, or some might say foolhardy of Texas pioneers
suffered a famous Indian attack that became the foundation for an enduring
legend of the American West. And its beginnings were right here in Grimes
County.
Elder John Parker appears to have been a deeply religious
yet impetuous patriarch, who led his large family from Virginia into settlement
experiments in Georgia, Tennessee, and finally Illinois, seeking the right
opportunity for his clan. Through their migrations they suffered multiple setbacks
and misfortunes, losing family members to disease and then John Jr. was killed
by Delaware Indians. Disgusted, John Parker decided they
all needed a fresh start. And besides, he dreamed of
establishing a frontier church, a “two seed” Baptist utopia in Texas.
The Parkers were the stereotypical advance guard of Manifest
Destiny; and a bundle of contradictions, wearing the various hats of preacher, farmer,
Indian fighter, or entrepreneur, as circumstances required. Now they added visionary colonists to their
resume and in 1832, 25 ox-drawn wagons rolled around 70 Illinois immigrants to
Grimes Prairie, not far from Navasota. Stephen F. Austin’s Colony had appeared to be the perfect
opportunity for social and financial recovery. After getting lost in Louisiana,
they followed an Indian trail known as the Coushatti Trace down to their new “Promised
Land.”
But nothing could go as planned. The Spanish government made an uncompromising requirement
of Catholicism, and Baptist ministers were not welcome. Federal laws notwithstanding, Daniel Parker performed
an illegal marriage near present day Anderson, and by some accounts preached the
first Protestant sermons on Texas soil. The Parkers were ready to stand for
their “rights.” But the do-good Parkers were also wanna- be “Injun fighters”
proposing not only to settle land but old scores with the Indians. Their illegal
and confrontational dispositions probably did not settle well with the local
leader, Regidor Jesse Grimes, who was very law-abiding and respectful of the
various local tribes. His friendly dealings
with the Kickapoos and Coushattas were a foundation of the community. One story
has it that after the Parker’s arrival, the Bedias Indians began to complain
that somebody was stealing their horses… When these Northern immigrants realized most
of the prime land in the area had already been acquired, and most of the
landowners were Southern slave holders, and yet dangerously tolerant of the
natives, they began to regroup.
In a cloud of accusation the weary and somewhat disgruntled immigrants
split up, nearly in half, and the Parkers and their most loyal friends pushed
further into the wilderness, far from the reaches of Mexico, and settled at the
headwaters of the Navasota River, near modern-day Groesbeck. By 1834 they had built a sturdy fort and
planted crops. 34 of the most
adventurous frontier settlers in Texas planted themselves far beyond the
comfort zone, where they could exercise religious freedom. More than able to
protect themselves, some of the men got themselves designated as Texas Rangers,
qualifying each man for an extra $1.50 per day, and all the Indians they could
hunt down. Ft. Parker became the
arrowhead of Anglo intrusion into wild Texas and the Parkers finally had their place
on earth.
The killing of one of their brothers by Lenape (Delaware)
murderers had prejudiced them, and James, Silas and Benjamin Parker were young
aggressive lions in the forest looking for trouble. They and their fellow
villagers began to hunt and kill Indians, making sure they would not ever
suffer at the hands of Red men again.
And one legend says they purchased horses from some of the natives with
counterfeit money. The Parkers were as complicated as they were “unlucky.”On May 19, 1836, just a few months after Texas had won its independence, an unusual coalition of Woodland and Plains tribes showed up at the gate of the fort. Several hundred angry Kiowas, Caddos and Comanches approached Ft. Parker with a white flag. They demanded water for their horses, and cattle to butcher. They were in no mood to suffer fools. But enough water and cattle to satisfy this throng would have prostrated the village. Benjamin bravely tried to renegotiate, making his very last deal with an Indian. When they did not get the payment they demanded, they began to butcher the Parkers like hogs. They hacked, raped and destroyed, killing and scalping five of the inhabitants including Elder John, Silas and Benjamin Parker and taking two young women and three children with them. Meanwhile 28 desperate survivors threaded through the forest to safety, arriving at Ft. Sam Houston after six days of grueling flight, barefooted and hungry, about the same time that the Comanches and Kiowas gloatingly divided their new white slaves on the infinite expanse of the “Great American Desert.” And an American legend was born. The twenty-five year saga for little nine- year old Cynthia Ann Parker had begun.
While the Plains Indians headed back to the Llano Estacado,
the Woodland Indians melted back into Frontier Texas. .. and the Native American
version of human trafficking became commonplace in the new republic. Delaware and Cherokee middle-men made careers
finding and ransoming Texas women and children. John Conner, Black Beaver, Jim
Shaw, Jesse Chisholm, and others were constantly contracted by Sam Houston to
find his captive sheep and bring them home. Amazingly, many of the captives spoke well of
their captors, and some even wanted to return to them.
Elizabeth Kellogg
was the consolation prize for the Caddoes, who wisely traded her to the some
Kichai kinsmen, wild plains Wichitas beyond the boundaries of civilization, who
fairly quickly traded her to, ironically, some Delawares. (Hmmmmm....) She was home by August. This was way too fast
for the Delawares to have even been hired by anyone to find her. But as it turned out, they happened to have
connections (coincidence?) to President Sam Houston, who gladly “reimbursed” them. The Indian network for slave trade and
extortion was surprisingly efficient.
When Elizabeth was returned to her family
at Nacogdoches, relatively close to Ft. Parker, they happened, coincidentally,
upon one of the Caddo Indians who had abducted her, and who had just recently been
caught stealing horses, and consequently suffering from a gunshot. He seems to be the only one of hundreds of
raiders at Ft. Parker that did not get away with and celebrate the murders,
kidnappings and extortions of the Parkers. He was executed in his stupor, but the rest of
the story unfolded painfully and slowly.
One beautiful day in May, life got different for Rachel Plummer.
Rachel Plummer,
three months pregnant, was thrown on a horse and taken five hundred miles away to the northwestern-most corner of Comancheria.
Her little boy James, just a toddler, was beaten bloody and then disappeared
completely. The baby she carried inside
her was born and then suffered a horrible death. After he became too much of a
distraction, he was strangled, cruelly dragged to pieces by several braves, and then tossed in her
lap. Rachel was just grateful that in spite
of their incredible brutality, they allowed her to bury her infant in peace. Later she decided to get herself killed by bucking the women who oversaw her labors. She ended up whipping them both and gaining the admiration of the tribe for her courage and fighting ability. It was explained to her by the chief that she had shown mercy to her enemies when they deserved death, and although this was not the Comanche way, her compassion was seen as Godly. Through her violent tirade she ascended from miserable slave to Divine messenger. After every unimaginable violation and humiliation, and eventual acceptance into their convoluted social order, she was unexplainably traded around 21 months later by her new tribe to Mexican Comancheros who ransomed her to a wealthy couple in New Mexico. Perhaps it had always been the plan.
The Donohos of Santa Fe had let it be known they would
ransom white Indian hostages. But it is easy to see their good intentions
backfiring and actually inspiring more kidnappings. Indians were notorious for
stealing people to increase their own numbers, but the main motive in this case
turned out to be something else; just plain old revenge… and a profitable
business opportunity.
The Comanches were adventuring way beyond their common hunting and
raiding grounds. The fact that there were any survivors indicates that they
were more interested in making a point, perhaps providing moral support rather
than gathering spoils or scalps. Led by
a merciless firebrand known as Peta Nocona, they took what they wanted, yet their
spoils were fairly insignificant compared to what they generously left behind to
the Woodland Indians, who failed miserably to capitalize on the raid, especially
the advantage in numbers that was provided them. The Comanches seem to have
been like a big brother helping a little brother settle a schoolyard dispute. It was after all, the local tribe’s battle. And the locals lost their nerve and only trailed the Ft. Parker refugees, as they scambled through the east Texas jungle.
It took a grueling six years, but four of the five captives
were ultimately ransomed for considerable amounts and returned to their
families. The fledgling and feeble Texas
government was bankrupting itself over fighting and paying the confounded Comanches.
The Donohos found themselves in the middle of a bloody
revolt in Santa Fe and fled with recovering Rachel Plummer in another long and
perilous journey… to Missouri, where she was finally reunited with family and
returned to the new Parker settlement in Montgomery County (probably northeast
Grimes County today)… which turned out to be another chapter of scandal and
chaos.
I am stretching to connect bits and pieces of history
together here, but from what I can conclude, James Parker found himself under
suspicion of responsibility somehow for the death of a Montgomery County woman by the name of Taylor. According to Blair’s Grimes County History and Z. N.
Morrell’s history, there was a woman named Taylor supposedly killed by Indians
there in 1838, in present day Grimes County. Mrs. Taylor, accompanied by her two daughters,
had insisted on retrieving the body of her husband who had just been killed by Indians.
They too were attacked and Mrs. Taylor was slain, and her daughters taken
captive. But in his wonderful book Empire of the Summer Moon, S. C. Gwynn finds that vigilantes had so threatened
James Parker over the death and robbery of a Mrs. Taylor and a daughter that he was compelled
to flee with his family. Parker even wrote in his own defense to Texas President
Lamar about the chase and his removal to Houston to save his family. I believe
the two Mrs. Taylors are one and the same. It seems that Indian depredations
followed the Parkers wherever they went, and soon the locals tied the two
together. It must be that some Montgomery County hotheads believed James Parker
had somehow riled the Indians, who were always consistent about retaliation. One
can understand their suspicions if this were the case.
During the first year after her return, Rachel Plummer wrote
quite a bit about her misfortunes, but unfortunately they were not over... And
more ironically, after becoming pregnant again, and predicting her imminent
death, she died after the Parker family’s flight through the wilderness in
Texas, this time to escape vigilante justice. James Parker ultimately left a trail of needless
casualties, and Gwynn describes him as “one of the most outrageous, extreme,
obsessive, ambitious, violent, dishonest, morally compromised, reckless and
daring characters ever to stake a claim on the early Texas frontier.”
Flowers for his dear Rachel? This is supposed to be an authentic likeness of troublesome James Parker. It certainly does nothing to contradict the unkind words used to describe him.
There was an ugly trend by now, and even Sam Houston washed
his hands of James Parker when he refused to return little James Plummer when
his father could not to afford to reimburse him for the ransom money… much of
which had come from the struggling Nation’s treasury. Gwynn again describes James Parker as; “... murderer,
counterfeiter, liar, drunk, horse thief and robber.” This was the man who searched tirelessly for and received
Rachel and James Plummer into his care, only to use the moments to destroy his legacy. It seems too ugly, too tragic to be
true.
Meanwhile at around thirteen years of age Cynthia Ann had
been married off to the cunning predator who had abducted her. A master of
bloody surprise raids who refused to talk peace, Peta Nocona fathered several
children by Cynthia who eventually saw him as her brave provider, a kind and
loving husband, and noble father of her sons. She had been interviewed over the years by
various would- be saviors, who begged her to agree to be ransomed, including her brother John. Nocona would not hear of it, and she only
froze up when it was discussed. She was not dissimilar to the women we hear
about held in captivity today… adjusting to horrible circumstances, losing hope
of escape, finding meaning in their life by serving their captor, even growing
… strangely tolerant if not even fond of them.
Then, twenty –five years later a strange “battle” took place
in far northwest Texas, which ended her saga and began another. Young Indian-
fighter Lawrence Sullivan Ross led a squad of Tonkowa warriors in a surprise
attack on Peta Nocona’s camp that birthed so much confusion that historians
have still never dared to explain the contradictions. According to the combatants, hundreds of
Comanches were encamped on the Pease River, where Ross and his warriors
attacked with so much force that the Comanches fled in all directions. This is
an unlikely scenario, and when the smoke had cleared, they had only killed a
few warriors, and perhaps a dozen squaws.
Years later old Rangers would sheepishly admit that they would never
brag about that particular skirmish. They were still squeamish over it. Still, they supposedly managed, they believed,
to kill the chief and capture his wife, only to discover she was Cynthia Ann.
Suddenly, no matter the circumstances, they were Texas
legends. Everyone was jubilant over the
end of a twenty five year tragedy. But
Cynthia Ann was crying profusely… supposedly over the loss of her beloved
husband and the separation from her sons.
Years later the Comanches insisted that the Rangers had not
killed Chief Peta Nocona, but his servant… perhaps another captive slave known as “Joe
Nocona,” who had been left behind by the main tribe in what later Comanche historians
called merely a “hunting party.” And a
fairly small and vulnerable hunting party it was, made up mostly of women… servants, and at least two captives. More likely they were intentional decoys, if not a begrudging peace offering.
Nocona was reputed to have lived on many more years,
living to see his and Cynthia Ann’s oldest son become a warrior of high status.
Whites even reported talking to him, but the story of his death stuck. The Rangers had killed him. Eventually Sul
Ross built an impressive military career, served as the youngest Confederate
General and was elected Governor of Texas.
But Cynthia Ann told
them from the git-go that a significant party of warriors, around 35 real
fighting men, had left just before the attack. With parties of soldiers weaving
across the plains, no self- respecting Comanches would have done so unless… it
was planned for some reason. And from
the day that she was “saved” Cynthia Ann was inconsolable. She finally admitted
who she was, remembered her English, and went home with her Uncle Isaac, who
set her up in a fine cabin near Ft. Worth, but she stayed depressed and
distracted, uninterested in her Parker kin or their civilization.
I propose something that has never been proposed to my
knowledge. Sure Cynthia Ann missed her boys, and was no doubt devastated after
being ripped away from her SECOND family, this time from her husband and
children. But I suggest that the Comanches, "lords of the plains," were in total
control the whole time. And what Cynthia Ann suffered was something worse than
captivity; Rejection.
Worse than that, being used as cannon fodder, Comanche style.
Nobody ever found the Comanches unless they wanted to be
found. The Tonkowa scouts had found
the camp… even saw hundreds of warriors.
But when they attacked at daybreak… ready to get their ultimate revenge,
all they found were some helpless stragglers. I believe Peta Nocona
orchestrated the surrender and recapture of his wife to buy time and peace for
his tribe. His band had been hounded all across the plains, as his famous wife
had attracted a great deal of negative attention, and the army coming after him
was growing exponentially. The hunter was becoming the hunted. I propose that his men were instructed to be
“found” and then unbeknownst to the focus of the search, Cynthia Ann and a few
women and servants were to be left behind to distract and delay the Texans and
Tonkowas, bent on satisfying two decades
worth of revenge. Worse than that, being used as cannon fodder, Comanche style.
They assumed from past skirmishes these stragglers would be safe. Whites would rarely kill women and children. Very possibly older, less essential members, ones who were burdensome and wanted to give it up, and perhaps wanted to be sent to the reservation were being granted their wish. The Texans would have to escort their prisoners to the Indian Territory…
And the wily, ruthless Peta Nocona would live to fight
another day. His handsome son Quanah Parker would become one of the fiercest
warriors in Comancheria, one of the last to be subdued. He made his father
proud no doubt, yet legend says he forbade his warriors to abuse or kill white
women, as one might be his mother. One has to wonder what made him so sure she might be alive. When
he finally came in to the reservation, one of the first things he did was seek
her out.
She and his little sister had died, one despondent, the
other from pneumonia, decades before during the Civil War. Quanah, who became a
great leader in the White world as he had been in the Red, then asked for something good he had
discovered about White civilization- a photograph of his long lost mother, the
human bridge between him and the world he was adjusting to. Amazingly, he made
a much better go of it than she had. A photographer who read of his
search sent him an enlargement of his mother suckling Prairie Flower, his
little sister. Luckily, he had captured them when both were at the height of their good health. It was supposedly his most prized possession.
And this all began one hundred seventy seven years ago,
today.
