disappeared
our history: COMANCHE WAR
the
Part 8
Crossing Over To The
White Side
Half-white war chief Quanah Parker shows a
surprising aptitude for peace
BY MEL W RHODES
APRIL 2016
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
A
20
profound sense of defeat and disillusionment
permeated reservation life once the
one-time, “Lords of the Plains” were corralled
by the U.S. Army at Fort Sill in June 1875. No
longer free to pursue their ages-old nomadic
lifestyle and separated from the buffalo, whose
decimation all but guaranteed the Plains Indian
culture would never rise from the ashes of defeat,
they saw no way forward, no future for The
People. If ever a people needed a messiah, the
Comanche did.
Chief Quanah Parker — with a little push from the fe deral government
— emerged from the smoking ruins of a burned down culture and with an