SEPTEMBER 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
high. They would then pull it down
through the pears. This they repeated
several times. One of them then got
on a horse, and tying the rope to his
saddle, rode round a circuit of a few
hundred yards, until my little innocent one was not only dead, but
literally torn to pieces. I stood horror
struck. One of them then took it up by
the leg, brought it to me, and threw it
into my lap….”
Rachel did not describe in her
narrative the sexual assaults she and
her aunt endured. She referred to it
as “barbarous treatment” resulting
in feelings of the “deepest mortification.”
Perhaps the only welcome sight
she saw was the self-inflicted deaths
of four warriors who’d stolen a bottle
of pulverized arsenic from her father’s
cabin. They mixed the poison with
saliva and painted their faces and
bodies with the deadly paste and
soon died.
The morning of the second day the
band headed north, eventually splitting up the captives — Rachel and her
son, her aunt Elizabeth, and Cynthia
Ann and John R. Parker — in the
Grand Prairie area, where the DallasFort Worth Metroplex now stands.
Brutally hard work defined life
in captivity among the Comanche.
Women cut wood and built fires,
The attack on Fort Parker
34
skinned and butchered game and set
up and struck tepees. Theirs was the
grueling work of turning thick, dense
buffalo hides into supple robes. A
mixture of deer brains and basswood
bark had to be tromped into the hides
for days.
Some squaws were humane
overseers, others were vindictive and
violent. Rachel’s reportedly fell into
the latter category, as, according to
the captive, she beat her charge often
and worked her mercilessly.
Rachel’s 21-month captivity was
eased somewhat when one day she
reached the end of her tolerance for
mistreatment. Expecting — perhaps
hoping — to be killed for her actions, she attacked her tormentor
with a huge buffalo bone, dashing
deep cuts into her head and face. No
one stepped in. Her rage having run
its course, Rachel dropped the bone
and began tending the wounds of the
undoubtedly shocked squaw.
“It was a turning point,” wrote Bill
Neely in The Last Comanche Chief
— The Life and Times of Quanah
Parker, “she had earned respect, both
for the beating and for the show of
compassion. Several of the men who
had witnessed the fight congratulated
Mrs. Plummer for her courage, and
one of the tribal elders told her that
the Great Spirit had blessed her with
the strength to offer mercy, as Indians
seldom did to a fallen foe. From that
moment on, Rachel Plummer was
treated with respect and was known
as ’the fighting squaw.’”
Her sojourn among her captors
finally ended when Mexican traders approached Comanches camped
near Santa Fe and asked to ransom
her. Col. and Mrs. William Donaho,
who had engineered the deal, took
receipt of Rachel in Santa Fe and took
her with them to Independence, Mo.,
when they sensed trouble with the
Mexicans brewing. Several months
later a family member came for her
and on Feb. 19, 1838, she and husband Luther Plummer were reunited.
Rachel “was emaciated, covered with
scars, and in very poor health.”
The former captive wrote of her
trials and perils in Rachel Plummer’s
Narrative of Twenty One Months Servitude as a Prisoner Among the Commanchee (sic) Indians, which published in Houston in 1838. According
to the Texas Handbook Online, it was
“the first narrative about a captive of
Texas Indians published in Texas.”
Rachel, the woman who had
traveled thousands of miles with her
nomadic captors and had endured
hellish atrocities at the hands of an
unmerciful people, never regained
her strength, ease or peace. On Jan. 4,