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S.C. GwynneEmpire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Dream Visions and Apocalypse”
The Penateka band of Comanches was the largest and most powerful. They freely raided deep into Mexico, defeated the Apaches, and kept the Spanish from expanding further north. The other bands had less interaction with Europeans. The close proximity and recurrent interaction with Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans had a profound effect on the history of the Penatekas. The more they raided, the more Western goods they acquired, and “[there] developed a sort of cultural pollution that could not be stopped” (90). The Penatekas became increasingly dependent on goods like tin and iron from which they would make their arrowheads, knives, and spear tips. However, this proximity also brought them in contact with disease, which decimated their numbers over the following years.
A Penateka chief named Buffalo Hump had a vision predicting that the Texans would be driven into the sea. He began to spread word of his vision. Warriors assembled over the following months; however, many of the other bands of Comanches only sent a handful of warriors. They were wary of the Penatekas and the raid. In their eyes, the Penatekas were changing, becoming something degraded, not Comanche, because of their many interactions with white men. Most Penatekas joined in, as did Kiowas, who had a long-standing kinship with the Comanches.
In August, a company of Penatekas and Kiowas rode south, 1,000 strong. They began raiding and were highly successful. The most destructive raid was the Great Linnville Raid. So thoroughly did they attack, kill, pillage, and set fire to buildings, that the once-thriving trade town was destroyed and never rebuilt. After the Linnville Raid, the Comanches returned to their lands while vengeful Texans pursued. The Texans who rode after Buffalo Hump and his warriors were a new kind of Texans, young men from back East who were fearless and highly adventurous: “They were highly motivated to track Indians and kill them and happily did it without pay or reward” (97).
Eventually, the Texans caught up to the Comanches and the battle of Plum Creek ensued. The Comanches were fought back and forced to flee, though they did so systematically and tactically. Two months later, a punitive raid led by Colonel John Moore penetrated deeper into Comancheria than ever before. They came upon a band of unsuspecting Comanches and slaughtered them.
Chapter 8 Summary: “White Squaw”
Different literary perspectives concerning Cynthia Ann’s life emerged among the Comanches. Some romanticized her experience; others portrayed it as a harsh life full of degradation and privation. The problem stemmed from the fact that few knew anything about her. Historians, however, have been able to piece together a more accurate picture of her life.
Life was harsh among the Comanches. Infertility and high death rates among men made maintaining the population difficult. Therefore, captives would oftentimes be fully adopted into the tribe. Matilda Lockhart represented the enslaved captives. Cynthia Ann represented those who were wholly accepted into the tribe. A hint at what life was like for Cynthia Ann among the Comanches came from the first-person account of Bianca “Banc” Babb, who was taken captive in 1866 and whose “written chronicle remains the only first-person narrative of a girl’s captive time with a southern plains tribe” (104).
Bianca reported that life among the Comanches was good: “[E]very day seemed to be a holiday” (105). She learned the Comanche language so well that it was difficult for her later to re-learn English. However good life was in general, food became problematic. At times, the Comanches ran out of food and were forced to kill a horse or mule, something they were loath to do. Bianca was loved and cared for by her adoptive parents as if she were related to them by blood. In essence, what Bianca’s account transmits is that “at the core of these most notorious and brutal killers, there existed a deep and abiding tenderness” (107).
In 1846, an Indigenous agent opened up talks with a powerful Comanche paraibo (leader) named Pah-hah-yuco. From this meeting, Colonel Williams first learned of Cynthia Ann. Col. Williams was instructed to purchase captives back as part of his diplomatic mission. He offered upwards of $500 for her release, but the Comanches wouldn’t relinquish her. Cynthia Ann married an important Comanche, and she did not want to leave the tribe. Cynthia Ann was a part of the Penateka tribe. She was called Nautdah, meaning Someone Found.
The Penatekas were a powerful tribe at one point, but disease decimated their numbers. By 1849, it is believed that their numbers were cut in half. They were wholly dependent on hunting buffalo, which gave them meat and furs. The Penateka lands were in most of modern Oklahoma, and they took the brunt of Mirabeau Lamar’s extermination policy. They were the tribe at the Council House Fight and Plum Creek. Comanche life was based on warfare. Young Comanche braves were expected to “fight and kill and return with horses” (115).
Chapter 9 Summary: “Chasing the Wind”
Cynthia Ann fared better than any of her other relatives, and it was Ann’s uncle, James W. Parker, who was to blame for the disaster at Parker’s Fort. A man of many contradictions, he spent much of his life tracking down all the Parker captives. He was able to get Elizabeth back after only three months. It took much longer for him to find his daughter, Rachel.
Rachel’s freedom was eventually purchased through Comancheros, who had a lucrative business in selling back white captives, and with the help of a wealthy woman from Santa Fe, Mary Donoho. In all, it took 19 months for Rachel to return, and her captivity took its toll on her. In 1843, James Pratt Plummer and John Richard Parker were discovered. They could not speak English. James Parker died before he could get Cynthia Ann back.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
The Penateka band of Comanches features heavily in these chapters, taking center stage to illustrate the rise and fall of the Comanche as a whole. Gwynne points out that the slow destruction of the buffalo (the true, wholesale slaughter wouldn’t occur until several decades after the timespan of this analysis) forced the Penateka to adapt and seek out increasing trade with outsiders, namely Americans. The term used to describe this interchange is “cultural pollution.” The negative connotation associated with the word “pollution” depicts the Penateka as victims of westward expansion, but the interaction was not forced upon them, and the Comanches were also violent raiders. In this way, Gwynne depicts the Comanches as engaged in A Clash of Empires. Much like the Vikings in Europe, their desire for war and loot led them to make decisions that inevitably caused cross-cultural exchanges. In fact, the very thing that made the Comanche so powerful in the first place, the horse, only came to them because of the Spanish. Throughout the book, Gwynne depicts the Comanche not as an isolated, culturally pure avatar of Indigeneity but as a people no less enmeshed in complex networks of power and trade than the Spanish or the Americans.
Gwynne’s narration of the Linnville raid illustrates the strength of a well-led Comanche war party. The raid reinforces the violence that was becoming well-known to Americans on the frontier. However, the events that transpired after Buffalo Hump and his people left Linnville show that Comanche religious beliefs could sometimes be a hindrance on the battlefield. Once the chief was killed, the others lost their nerve and fled. This stemmed from the belief in puha (personal medicine/magic), which in many instances held that performing a certain act, or wearing an important trinket, endowed that person with superhuman abilities. If the puha didn’t work, it seems that the Comanches had no stomach to fight. The motivation of the raid also reinforces the power of certain charismatic leaders. Buffalo Hump convinced others that they were destined to win. However, it should be remembered that not all of the Comanche bands believed in Buffalo Hump and his vision, so to what extent the Comanche broadly believed in magic and prophecy remains obscure.
Cynthia Ann’s capture and time with the Comanches play an integral part in the story of the tribe. The author argues that the fate of the Parkers was also the fate of the Comanche Nation. However, few primary-source documents detail her life, and the ones that do exist are from a third-person perspective—and a biased one at that, in that they are almost all from captives. In the cases of Bianca Babb and Minnie Caudle, the two women used as parallels to Cynthia Ann, it is important to note their loyalty and devotion to the Comanche. Not only did they both find love and kindness among the Comanche, but even years after returning to American society, they continued to remember them fondly. For example, in Chapter 8, it is said of Minnie that she “would not hear a word against the Indians” (107). Their stories provide a counterpoint to the Anti-Indigenous Racism and Cultural Misunderstanding that characterized most white people’s views of Indigenous people in this era. While white settlers during this time of conflict thought of the Comanche as inherently and exclusively brutal and violent—conveniently ignoring their own brutality against Indigenous peoples—Bianca and Minnie witness the Comanche as they are with their families rather than as they are at war.
The fact that Cynthia Ann did not want to return to life in the United States shows how strong family bonds could be among the Comanche and how integrated captives could become. It is clear that Cynthia Ann loved her Comanche husband and children. She told her brother John (who had also been a captive but was then returned and sent out to find Ann) that “her husband, children and all that she held most dear were with the Indians, and there she would remain” (126).
