A war party of around 250 warriors, composed mainly of Comanches and Cheyennes, who were impressed by Isa-tai’s claim of protective medicine to protect them from their enemies’ bullets, headed into Texas towards the trading post at Adobe Walls. They suggested that if Quanah were to attack anybody, he should attack the merchants. Other Comanche chiefs, notably Isa-Rosa (“White Wolf”) and Tabananika (“Sound of the Sunrise”) of the Yamparika and Pearua-akupakup sects of the Nokoni band, identified the buffalo hide merchants as the real threat to their way of life. At that gathering, Isa-tai and Quanah recruited warriors for raids into Texas to avenge slain relatives. The bands gathered in May on the Red River, near present-day Texola, Oklahoma. In 1873, Isa-tai, a Comanche claiming to be a medicine man, called for all the Comanche bands to gather together for a Sun Dance, even though that ritual was Kiowa, and had never been a Comanche practice. Army forces to round up or kill the remaining Indians who had not settled on reservations. Following the capture of the Kiowa chiefs Sitting Bear, Big Tree, and Satanta, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Southern Cheyenne tribes joined forces in several battles. In the early 1870s, the Plains Indians were losing the battle for their land with the United States government. Tirhayaquahip made a statement about Quanah’s refusal to sign the treaty. In October 1867, when Quanah was only a young man, he had come along with the Comanche chiefs as an observer at treaty negotiations at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. After Pete Nocona, Tirhayaquahip taught Quanah the ways of the Comanche warrior, and he grew to considerable standing as a warrior. Quanah Parker on horseback wearing eagle feather headdress and holding a lance bottom-up.Īfter Peta Nocona’s death in 1864, being now Parra-o-coom (“Bull Bear”), the head chief of the Quahadi band, and Kobay-o-burra (“Wild Horse”), the second ranking, Quanah was introduced into the Nokoni band, where the head chief Tirhayaquahip, took him under his wing. Tragically, Cynthia Ann “Nadua” Parker died due to hunger strike and influenza in March 1871. Unlike her mother, Topsana began to adapt to her new culture, but died of an illness in 1863. After twenty-four years with the Comanche, Nadua refused re-assimilation. Nonetheless, Cynthia Ann “Nadua” and Topsana were taken by the Texas Rangers in a raid and were taken to Cynthia Ann’s brother’s home. Some, including Quanah Parker himself, claim this story is false and that he, his brother, and his father Peta Nocona were not at the battle, that they were at the larger camp miles away, and that Nocona died years later of illness caused by wounds from battles with Apache. It was believed that Quanah and his brother Pecos were the only two to have escaped on horseback, and were tracked by Ranger Charles Goodnight but escaped to rendezvous with other Nokoni people. 2nd Cavalry, and Texas Rangers under Sul Ross would claim that at the end of the battle, he wounded Nocona, who was thereafter killed by Spangler’s Mexican servant. John Spangler, who commanded Company H of the U.S. In December 1860, Cynthia Ann and Topsana were captured in the battle of Pease River. Nadua and Nocona also had another son, Pecos (sometimes known as “Peanuts”), and a daughter, Topsana (“Prairie Flower”). For what it’s worth, Quanah would later write in a letter to rancher Charles Goodnight, “From the best information I have, I was born about 1850 on Elk Creek just below the Wichita Mountains.” Alternative sources cite his birthplace as Laguna Sabinas or Cedar Lake in Gaines County, Texas. Nadua and Nocona’s first child was Quanah or Kwana, born in the Wichita Mountains of southwestern Oklahoma in 1845, 1850 or 1852 depending on which history you believe. Quanah’s paternal grandfather was the renowned chief Puhihwikwasu’u (“Iron Jacket”), a warrior of the earlier Comanche-American Wars, famous among his people for wearing a Spanish coat of mail. Assimilated into the Comanche, Nadua Parker was married to the warrior chief Peta Nocona, also known as Noconie, Tah-con-ne-ah-pe-ah, Nocona or the “Lone Wanderer”. Given the Comanche name Nadua (“Foundling”), she was adopted into the Nokoni band of Comanches, as a foster daughter of Tabby-nocca. She was captured at age nine by Comanches during the raid of Fort Parker near present-day Groesbeck, Texas. Quanah Parker’s mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was a member of the large Parker frontier family that settled in east Texas in the 1830s. Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter, Topusana (Prairie Flower), in 1861.
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