Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

“In one sense, the Parkers are the beginning and end of the Comanches in U.S. history.”

The author uses bold statements designed to grab the reader’s attention when narrating the history of the Comanches, Texans, and anyone dealing with the region. However, aside from its stylistic attributes, the sentence is designed to introduce the importance of Quanah Parker as the central and pivotal personality in the history of the Great Plains and of the Comanches.

“The horse and the knowledge of how to use it spread with astonishing speed through the midcontinent. In 1630, no tribes anywhere were mounted. By 1700, all Texas plains tribes had them; by 1750, tribes of the Canadian plains were hunting buffalo on horseback.”

The horse is what made the Comanche who they were. Without the spread and trade of horses from the Spanish, it’s quite possible that the group of Shoshone who broke off and became the Comanche never would have done so, and had they done so without the horse, they most likely could not have become as dominant as they did. The Comanches’ ability to fight while mounted gave them a tremendous advantage in hunting buffalo over their competition with other tribes on the plains, like the Apache. Thus, the statement made by the author later in the book that the socio-economic and military changes wrought on Comanche culture by the acquisition of the horse were similar to those changes wrought on European civilization by the harnessing of electricity is justified.

“Such behavior was common to all Indians in the Americas. The most civilized agrarian tribes of the east, in fact, were far more adept at devising lengthy and agonizing tortures than the Comanches or other plains tribes.”

The brutality of the Comanche raiders is not censored. One reason for this is to establish an unbiased narration that does not support the idea that the Comanche were a peaceful people exploited and murdered by conquering white men. The violence in the book is used to show why settlers feared and despised not only the Comanches but other Indigenous peoples as well, for the above statement reflects that brutality was not something solely characteristic of the Comanches: It was characteristic of many North American Indigenous peoples.

“[Indigenous Americans] were three to four millennia behind the Europeans and Asians, and the arrival of Columbus in 1492 guaranteed that they would never catch up. The non-agrarian Plains Indians, of course, were even further behind.”

Indigenous Americans faced many difficulties in dealing with the arriving Europeans in the Americas. There is no downplaying the devastating effects of European diseases for which the Indigenous populations possessed no immunity, and which devastated and wiped out entire villages and tribes. However, Indigenous defeat lay mostly in the fact Europeans had economic, military, and institutional advantages over Indigenous Americans. Because the Indigenous peoples lacked a means to modernize and organize, the results of the conflict between Europeans and aboriginal peoples were a foregone conclusion.

“Both girls [Bianca Babb & Minnie Caudle] had seen something in the primitive, low-barbarian Comanches that almost no one else had, not even people like Rachel Plummer with long experience of tribal life.”

The book in no way supports the idea of the “noble savage,” or that life was better for the Indigenous peoples than it was for Westerners. Neither does it assume that people like the Americans didn’t realize the freeing and peaceful life that could be lived away from the corrupting influences of civilization. However, the author also makes a point of highlighting the fact that the contrary viewpoint that European/American culture was superior to that of nomadic Indigenous cultures is also false. Despite the violence, the danger, the hard work, and the spartan lifestyle, there were redeeming and positive factors to life among the Plains tribes, and some captives came to prefer that life. This was an incomprehensible notion for many people at the time.

“What was killing them [the Penateka] steadily and surely was not the warlike policies of Lamar, as harsh as they were. Or even the catastrophic disappearance of game from the eastern ranges. The agent of destruction was the same one that had destroyed the majority of the population of almost every Indian tribe in the Americas, starting with the Aztecs: white man’s disease.” 

It is difficult to comprehend just how devastating European diseases like smallpox were on the population of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. It is difficult to ascertain just how many Indigenous Americans died from exposure to European diseases. However, in an article in Explorations in Economic History, studies are cited that place the number of deaths in Hudson Bay populations somewhere between 50% and 75% (Carlos, Ann M. and Frank D. Lewis. “Smallpox and Native American mortality: The 1780s epidemic in the Hudson Bay region.” Explorations in Economic History, vol. 49, no. 3, 2012, pp. 277-90.).

“The problem for the Comanches was that, where once they existed as a buffer between two huge land empires, they now stood directly in the way of American nationhood. They were now surrounded by a single political entity.”

It was beneficial for the Comanches to reside in an area of land that wasn’t much sought after and that existed between two large European empires that were often at odds with one another: the French and Spanish. This is one reason why de Anza wanted a peace treaty with the Comanches in the first place rather than trying to defeat them militarily and establish settlements in that area. California was far more lucrative than Texas at that time period, and the Spanish were busy expanding into California. The French had their hands busy in the northern reaches of their colonies and in trying to control the Mississippi. However, all this changed when the French sold Louisiana to the US and when the Mexicans lost all their North American territory after the Mexican-American War. Thereafter, the Comanches were no longer a buffer between competing powers; rather, they became a stumbling block for a young and expanding power that dreamed of settling all lands under its dominion.

“The failure of Johnson’s unit illustrated an old truth in the West: that knowledge of how to fight Comanches spread, at best, sporadically and unevenly along the frontier. There were things that Jack Hays knew in 1839 that Rangers in general still had not learned twenty years later.”

One of the most recurring themes is the fact that so many commanders, soldiers, and Texas Rangers never learned from their predecessors how to combat the Comanche. Time and again lessons had to be relearned, and the learning process was always a painful one and cost the lives of many men.

“If Indians had been writing about the northwest frontier of Texas in 1860, they might have characterized Peta Nocona’s attacks as tactically brilliant guerrilla warfare, in the same way historians would later speak of the daring exploits of Confederate raider Nathan Bedford Forrest.”

It is very common for the author to compare Comanches to Europeans or white Americans in an attempt to show that the two sides were more alike than not. The raiding tactics of the Comanche would most definitely be considered guerrilla warfare, and the comparison to Nathan Bedford Forrest is sound. What this excerpt confirms is the age-old adage that history is written by the victors. The author attempts in several instances to give credit where credit is due to the Comanche in general, and to specific Comanche individuals, where previously they had been a mere footnote in the history of the West.

“She had forsaken the virtues of Christianity for the wonton immorality of the Indian […] People simply did not believe that a Christian white woman had gone along with it voluntarily.”

One of the most alluring aspects of Cynthia Ann’s history is the fact that she always wanted to return to the Comanches and that she could not re-integrate into American society. For many this was unfathomable. Europeans, and thus Americans, represented the most advanced and therefore desirous aspects of human civilization. An aspect of colonialism was the belief that Europeans were civilizing an uncivil world. Cynthia Ann was, therefore, an enigma, and she threatened the idea that American culture and civilization were better in every aspect than that of the Indigenous Americans.

“Their actions amounted to what we would today consider to be political terrorism. There was still status in horse-thieving, to be sure. But all Comanches knew that the one sure way to roll back the frontier was to torture, rape, and kill all of its white residents.”

At times, the violence depicted in the book is contradictory. Most often the violence is mentioned because it supports the goal of portraying colonial fear of Comanche violence. It is also argued on several occasions that the Comanches did not single out white settlers, as they were just as brutal to other Indigenous groups as they were to anyone else.

“It is interesting to note, though, that such gut-churning shame and disgust was largely confined to the east. The protest over the killing of women was not echoed by any such sentiments in Indian country, where everyone knew that women were often combatants (they were not, in this case).” 

It is rarely discussed in detail, but there were many people who wanted to find a peaceful solution to deal with the Indigenous Americans. Not everyone supported extermination or internment. However, the fact that most of the “pro-Indigenous” people were from back East—that is to say, in the rear of the struggle rather than the frontlines—echoes throughout history. It is impossible to remove the intense sentiments that accompany the brutality of war. It’s always easier to look at a situation with objectivity when the people dying are personally unknown. The author points out this fact in multiple instances.

“The governing idea was that the Comanches and other troublesome tribes would live in peace if only they were treated properly, and the farther its devotees were from the bleeding frontier, the more devoutly they believed it […] The notion that the trouble with Plains Indians was entirely due to white men was spectacularly wrongheaded.”

The author points out the hyperbolic fallacy that only white settlers were to blame for the violence of the frontier and dispels the notion of the “noble savage.” The author does not excuse the actions of white men against the Indigenous peoples, nor does he condone the way the Indigenous peoples fought back and with one another. It is truly a rare thing in history when there is only one aggressor, or one side that perpetrates the violence and bloodshed. Furthermore, the above passage supports the previous one about how the farther one is removed from the violence the easier it is to condemn any one side. By including the narratives of scalping and rape, the author brings the bloodletting of the “Indian Wars” closer to the present.

“Its most basic problem was that the peace policy rewarded aggression and punished good conduct. The Indians realized that their most violent wars always ended with some sort of treaty, which was always accompanied by many splendid gifts and tokens of friendship and trust.”

It was a constant struggle for Europeans and white Americans to understand the mindset of Indigenous Americans, and their inability to do so highlights differences of opinion in how Euro-Americans should deal with them. There were people like Lamar who wanted the Indigenous peoples exterminated or removed from areas where white Americans held interests, and there were those who believed the Indigenous peoples were only violent because of Euro-American expansionism, and there were people somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, this created chaos and sent many mixed signals to the Indigenous peoples. This problem was compounded by the flagrant corruption of many officials who were in charge of overseeing matters between the government and the Indigenous peoples. In this sense, the lack of organization and inability to keep promises simply annulled attempts at peace, if peace were possible. Thus, the Indigenous peoples reverted to their old ways of violent raids to get what they wanted. It created a vicious cycle of violence, attempts at peace, broken deals, and back to violence.

“Now, in their deliberate penetration of the heartland, the bluecoat leaders were signaling their intent not just to protect the frontier but to destroy the raiders themselves, to find the wolves in their den and kill them.”

By the 1870s, the United States was healing well from the scars left by the Civil War. The former Confederate states were back in the Union functioning as states rather than occupied territories, the railroads connected the cities and states on the Pacific coast with the old states on the Atlantic, and more and more immigrants from overseas (and more Americans) were seeking land and a new life in the middle of the nation. The United States was in a position to end the chaos of the “Indian Wars.” General Mackenzie embodied this drive, and his attacking the Comanches deep in their own territory, something that hadn’t been done in a very long time, represented the beginning of the end for the Comanches in Comancheria.

“When the smoke from the black powder had cleared, he had killed fifty-two Indians, and had lost only four of his own. He had taken 124 prisoners—mostly women and children—something that had not to Comanches within anyone’s memory. It had very likely never happened.”

Mackenzie displayed just how much he had learned in combating the Comanches. The fact that he had handed the Comanches one of the worst defeats in their history deep in the heartland of Comancheria, on the Llano Estacado, is telling of just how close the end was for Comanche resistance to the American army.

“‘These men [hunters] have done in the last two years…more to settle the vexed Indian question the entire regular army has done in the last thirty years.’ he said. ‘They are destroying the Indians’ commissary…For the sake of a lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy.’ Killing the Indians’ food was not just an accident of commerce: it was a deliberate political act.”

The downfall of the Plains tribes is mostly remembered in the battles and raids that occurred during what is commonly referred to as the “Indian Wars.” War tends to make for more interesting reading for the general public. However, disease brought over by European settlers and explorers killed far more people than bullets, cannons, or swords, and on the Great Plains, specifically, the destruction of the formerly plenteous buffalo herds cannot be disregarded as a decisive factor in the defeat of the Plains tribes.

“The slowness of the travel lent a sort of wistfulness to the journey. There was a sense that they were performing what amounted to the last rites of freedom.”

Quanah Parker realized the futility of further resistance and convinced his people to surrender. In willfully deciding to call it quits and march to the nearest reservation to turn themselves over to US authorities, he gave the Comanches the opportunity to take their time and indulge in the last aspects of their old way of life. It is a poetic image to think of Quanah and his people accepting the inevitable with stoicism mingled already with a sense of nostalgia.

“What they found shocked them. There were no buffalo anywhere, no living ones, anyway, only vast numbers of stinking, decaying corpses or bones bleached white by the sun.”

One of the reasons Quanah Parker had decided to surrender and turn himself and his people over to US authorities was due to the destruction of the buffalo: They were slowly starving before surrendering simply because there were so few animals left. However, only a few years later, the destruction of the buffalo herds had continued unabated, the animals hunted nearly to extinction, and the Comanche had to witness it first-hand. One can imagine visiting a logging area in the Amazon, where trees were already becoming scarce, only to return to that area a few years later to find a desert where there was once a jungle. The shock must have been similar for Quanah and his people. The experience probably reiterated just how much the world around them had changed. One can imagine them commiserating with the buffalo they once lived among.

“Strange, then, that this despondent, crippled, post-cataclysmic world became the staging ground for the remarkable career of Quanah Parker, as he would insist on being called, the man who became the most successful and influential Native American of the late nineteenth century and the first and only man ever to hold the title Principal Chief of the Comanches.”

Quanah’s importance to Comanche history prior to life on the reservation was that he was unimportant. He was a strong and charismatic leader, but there were many others who were more successful in battle and leadership than he was: Cuerno Verde, Buffalo Hump, and Ten Bears, to name three. Quanah was never a great war chief, just a minor one. However, that all changed during the reservation years, and Quanah was the best Comanche at adapting to the new ways of life. He integrated well into American culture, albeit on a reservation. What is most interesting, however, is that he appears never to have used his success solely for himself. He always had the goal of making life better for his people. The fact that he used his cattle to feed his people rather than to acquire wealth is just one example of the type of leader and person Quanah Parker was.

“No one ever cheated Quanah, as far as we know. He understood the game too well, and was always a step ahead of everyone else, including the white stockmen. He played by the rules as he perceived them to be, and he was as good as most white men at playing the game. He also truly believed that making money off the unused land was best for his tribe.”

Quanah Parker’s ability to adapt and his intelligence are best observed in how well, and how quickly, he learned to use the ways of the white man to his own advantage. It also shows just how great of a leader he was in that he used these skills not solely for his own personal gain, but rather to make life better for his people.

“There were always many other Comanche tipis around the house, too. That was partly because of Quanah’s unfailing generosity—he fed many hungry Comanches over the years and never turned anyone away. According to people who knew him, feeding members of his tribe was the main use to which he put his private herd.”

Quanah was able to adapt very well to life on the reservation, and to the American way of life. He never really looked back, only forward, and he prospered by doing things the way a white man would. However, he never became a wealthy cattle baron. He broke with the white man’s way by using his money not for further business or as a sign of social status; rather, he used his profits to aid his people. The fact that Quanah used much of his financial success to help out other Comanches who were in poverty and needed help illustrates just what type of leader he was, and what sort of a man he was, better than anything he ever did as a warrior out on the plains.

“Quanah also understood the futility of blind resistance. Having nominally agreed to the terms of the Jerome Agreement, he spent the next eight years—the time it took the Senate to ratify it—lobbying hard for changes in its terms.”

One of Quanah’s greatest skills as a leader was knowing when to fight and when to make a deal. Quanah perspicaciously realized that there was no way to fight the Jerome Agreement. He knew the US government was going to take much of their land one way or another, and so Quanah correctly realized that the best course of action was to ensure his people got the best deal possible.