PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
AUGUST 2015
This stuck in the craw of some
Texans while others, unwilling to
be flabbergasted, stuck to another
script, one that presented the
Cynthia Ann Parker they preferred.
In November 1860, fired Indian
agent and professed Indian hater
John Baylor used the front page of
his Weatherford, Texas, newspaper
The Whitema n to cultivate an image
most romantic, the tale of a supposed
former Texas Ranger. His flowery
account read:
“We could not distinguish the
traces of the woman’s flight for
some distance up the ravine,” the
frontiersman reported. “I could not
help observing the delicate smallness of the wet foot marks she left
upon the stones … . Poor creature!
Her naked feet have been cut in the
rapid flight.” Later: “I saw at once,
from the fairness of her complexion,
not only that she was not an Indian,
but felt that hers must be the face that
had so possessed my imagination. I
could distinguish that she was a clear
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brunette, and evidently a foreigner…
. She sharply asked me in French,
‘Qui êtes-vous?’ “I speak French very
lamely, and answered, as best as I
could, Texans, Americans, et amis.’
She smiled brightly … and came
bounding down the rocks to join
us.” Still later: “That night her small,
graceful head lay upon my shoulder, while the long and silken hair
streamed in a raven cloud to my feet.
She was very lightly clothed, since
the only garments of civilization her
captors had left her was something
like a chemise of fine linen, which
left her breast exposed and the arms
naked; she, however, had thrown
over her shoulders, as a cape, the
brightly rosetted skin of an ocelot,
but this had now fallen off. From an
instinct of delicacy which does not
desert even rude backwoods men,
I swept her long hair as the most
appropriate veil over her bosom. It
was sacred to me!”
Whimsical accounts like this cast
Cynthia Ann in a more forgiving
light, lending her an air of gentility.
People want to believe, and Baylor,
who later became something of a
local hero around Parker County for
his unflagging efforts to hunt down
and kill Indians, used his newspaper
to make sure settlers believed they
should hate the Indians and that no
white woman would voluntarily live
among the savages. She certainly
would not “go native.”
But it seems clear she had — gone
native. Over the years effort after
effort to coax her from her Comanche
family failed. She said “no,” and
tribal leaders said nothing short of
a brutal onslaught could separate
Cynthia Ann from her Comanche
family. And so it was.
On Dec. 18, 1860, a force led by
Lawrence Sullivan (Sul) Ross encountered a Comanche hunting party on
Mule Creek, a tributary of the Pease
River in far North Texas. He had
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