Frontier abductions were in one sense classic acts of
terror. In keeping with the fundamentals of terrorism, the
Comanche’s goal was to deter white settlement, to instill
in their enemies a dread fear of losing what they held most
dear — their children. Tribes or peoples who face superior
numbers or technology and who cannot respond to perceived threats through conventional means often resort to
terrorism, war waged not in trenches or on battlefields but
through hit-and-run tactics designed to dispirit or terrorize
a superior force. (As seen in our own hi-tech time, after hitting, the terrorists do not always run, which perhaps makes
their attacks all the more unfathomable.)
Other thoughts on the savage practice suggest more
pragmatic reasons for the snatch-and-grabs. The Comanches were far from capitalists, but they knew settlers would
ransom their children and that the money paid (as much
as $400) would buy horses, guns and other useful things.
Others argue the kidnapped kids were key to the Comanche’s very survival.
“As perverse as it may seem, there was a human side to
the Comanche child-stealing,” wrote Jan Reid in the February 2003 issue of Texas Monthly magazine. “Smallpox,
cholera and other diseases were decimating all the tribes,
and Comanche mothers were believed to be unusually
prone to miscarriage. The child captives helped a dwindling people believe they might have a future on this
earth.”
That the tribe or bands incorporated these stolen chil-
dren into their social fabric seems clear. Comanche men
often took white girls for wives and had children with
them. Arguably, the most celebrated (and perhaps resented) of these white-girls-turned-squaws was Texas’ Cynthia
Ann Parker. Taken from the folds of her mother’s skirts,
nine-year-old Cynthia Ann vanished from white society
May 19, 1836, last seen on the back of a galloping pony
disappearing toward the wooded horizon, prisoner of a
red-and-black-faced warrior.
Though a successful grab for the Indians, the event had
an unintended consequence — the little girl they spirited
away that May day became the ”poster child” for Comanche barbarism. Settlers on the Texas frontier rallied around
the Parker family, finding new reserves of hate to draw
upon in their onerous struggle with the Plains Indians. Cynthia Ann’s story is far from simple; it has all the makings
of a first-rate melodrama. Her abduction began a series of
events that would leave a trail of sorrow, hope and disillusionment across the span of a quarter of a century.
The Parker Family wagoned down from Crawford
County, Ill., in 1833, three years before Texas won independence from Mexico to become a separate nation, a
republic. The father, Elder John Parker, and his sons —
Benjamin, Silas and James — were primary settlers of what
would come to be known as Fort Parker, situated east of
Waco and about two miles west of present-day Groesbeck,
Texas. Completed in 1834, the fort sat near the headwaters of the Navasota River. Some four acres lay within the
compound walls, mainly safe haven for the Parkers and
JULY 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
Time and disuse took their toll on Old Fort Parker. Workers built a replica in the 1930s
and rebuilt it in 1967. Fort Parker photos used in this article were taken in June 2015.
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