Quanah Parker was born around 1845 to Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker near the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma. Cynthia Ann Parker was captured in 1836 at the age of nine by the Comanche’s and given the name Nadua which means someone found. Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter were captured during a raid on the Pease River in 1860, Cynthia had spent about 24 years with the Comanche and because of this she never readjusted to living among the white men again. After Quanah’s mother was recaptured his father became a broken man and soon died, but before his death he finally told Quanah about capturing his mother from the whites and …show more content…
For the next twenty-five years, he provided excellent leadership and promoted things such as self-sufficiency and self-reliance on the reservation. These things were accomplished by building schools, creating ranching operations, and planting crops. Quanah Parker also served as a judge on the tribal court and even established the Comanche police department. He inspired the tribe to learn a lot of things from the white men and their ways but he did this without rejecting Comanche traditions altogether. Quanah upheld these Comanche traditions by continuing to have five wives, refusing to cut his long braids, and rejecting Christianity. Through all of his own investments he became an extremely wealthy man and some say he was even the wealthiest Native American of the time. Although Quanah received a lot of praise by many people in his tribe he also received a lot of criticism for “selling out to the white man.” He also received a lot of criticism because he was not elected as Chief by the Comanche tribe, but was instead appointed the role by federal agents. Because he was not elected and was never given the title of chief before 1875, many believe that Chief Horseback was actually the last Comanche