Essay Questions

Compare and contrast the characters of Rachel Parker Plummer and Cynthia Ann Parker.

Rachel and Cynthia Ann were both born into the Parker family: a group of assertive religious pioneers who decided to live and raise a family on the frontier. Both were female, with a strict Baptist upbringing. Both were captured during the Comanche raid on Fort Parker, and both spent time in captivity. Each woman was clever and resilient, learning the Comanche language and adopted some of the Comanche customs in terms of dress and food: Rachel is quoted as having described her new fondness for beaver tail, buffalo, and prairie dog meat.

Whereas Rachel had a negative experience of captivity and engineered her own escape, Cynthia's experience of captivity was mostly positive. Cynthia assimilated completely into the Comanche culture, taking the name "Nautdah" and marrying a war chief named Peta Nocona. She tried repeatedly to escape what she perceived to be her captivity in the home of her Parker relative once she was forcibly returned to "civilization".

Quanah Parker was half Comanche and half White. Did it affect his credibility? Why or why not?

After the death of Peta Nocona and the capture of Nautdah, Quanah and his younger brother were effectively orphans. This, and the fact they were only half Comanche, meant that nobody in the tribe was willing to feed or help raise them. Being only half Comanche hurt Quanah's credibility until he proved himself in battle and was considered a war chief. Yet after he started advocating for surrender and adoption of reservation life, some of his fellow Comanche viewed him as a sellout.

Being half White definitely enhanced Quanah's reputation among American politicians, newspapermen, and negotiators. He became more famous and more successful than many actual Comanche chiefs. This enhanced his credibility among the Americans.

After moving to the reservation, Quanah Parker adopted some aspects of the American lifestyle but not others. Which did he adopt and which did he reject? Why?

Quanah learned English, took up ranching as a profession, built a large house, and adopted European/American standards of dress. He kept his long braided hair and all of his wives; in fact. during the reservation he married a few more and ended up married to at least eight women at once. He also kept the peyote custom.

Ranching was a necessity because the buffalo did not come often to the reservation, and Quanah needed a source of income. Learning the English language and adopting standards of contemporary professional dress was important to ensure Quanah's opportunity to negotiate with and be taken seriously by American politicians. He traded heavily on his celebrity in order to enrich his family and provide for his tribe. However Quanah kept his religion, and with it the peyote ceremony. He adopted multiple children, including two white boys, and married multiple wives partly in order to provide for them and partly because he was a ladies' man and could afford to support everyone.

What was the significance of the horse to the Comanche people prior to the reservation era?

Horses were the primary unit of Comanche currency and also the source of their military might. The Comanche battle strategy relied heavily on surprise attacks and the ability to cover vast territory quickly. Furthermore, riding horses allowed the Comanche to hunt buffalo for their hides, creating a trade opportunity with the Spanish. The horse eventually came to have enormous cultural, emotional, and spiritual significance for many Comanche people.

Were war chiefs regarded as political leaders among the Comanche? Why did Quanah's status as a war chief affect his ability to deal with Comanche political leaders at the end of the war?

The Comanche had three kinds of leader: tribal chiefs who were in charge of decision making and conflict resolution, "medicine men" who were regarded as spiritual leaders, and war chiefs who led raiding parties but seldom organized hunts or camps.

Quanah was a war chief, which meant that prior to the reservation period he was not regarded by the Comanche as a political leader responsible for making decisions or commitments on behalf of a tribe. He was more of a general than a president. But during the reservation period, Quanah displayed a keen mind for business and great skill as a negotiator. He convinced hundreds of Comanche to avoid a slow death by starvation by coming to the reservation, and once on the reservation he advanced Comanche interests until his dying day. He was able to save much, but not all, of the Comanche territory during a land grab by the US Government, and accumulated enough wealth to allow him to support his remarkably large family and any visitor who came along.

Since Quanah was a war chief, the fact the American politicians and negotiators wanted to deal with him (due to his fame and influence among his fellow Comanche) irritated some of the tribal chiefs and medicine men who regarded themselves as the more "legitimate" Comanche leaders. These men, generally older and far better established than Quanah, believed he was a sellout and an opportunist. They believed that by negotiating directly with American authorities he was going over the heads of the legitimate Comanche decision makers.