page_title: Quanah Parker
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Quanah Parker / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Quanah Parker on Horseback with lance and eagle feather headdress. Lawton, Oklahoma.
context_page_description: Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Quahadi band of the Comanche Nation. He was born into the Nokoni band, the son of Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been kidnapped as a child and assimilated into the tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans deliberately hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into extinction, Quanah eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Quahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
  Quanah Parker was never elected chief by his people but was appointed by the federal government as principal chief of the entire Comanche Nation, and became a primary emissary of southwest indigenous Americans to the United States legislature. In civilian life, he gained wealth as a rancher, settling near Cache, Oklahoma. Though he encouraged Christianization of Comanche people, he also advocated the syncretic Native American Church alternative, and passionately fought for the legal use of peyote in the movement's religious practices.
context_section_description: After Peta Nocona's death (c. 1864), being now Parra-o-coom ("Bull Bear"), the head chief of the Quahadi band, and Kobay-o-burra ("Wild Horse"), the second ranking, Quanah was introduced into the Nokoni band, where the head chief Tirhayaquahip, also called Kiyou ("Horseback"), took him under his wing. After Peta Nocona and Pohebits-quasho, Tirhayaquahip taught Quanah the ways of the Comanche warrior, and he grew to considerable standing as a warrior. He left and rejoined the Quahadi (Antelope Eaters) band with warriors from another band. Quanah Parker surrendered to Mackenzie and was taken to Fort Sill, Indian Territory where he led the Comanches successfully for a number of years on the reservation. Quanah was never elected principal chief of the Comanche by the tribe. The U.S. government appointed him principal chief of the entire nation once the people had gathered on the reservation and later introduced general elections. In October 1867, when Quanah was only a young man, he had come along with the Comanche chiefs as an observer at treaty negotiations at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Tirhayaquahip made a statement about Quanah's refusal to sign the treaty. In the early 1870s, the Plains Indians were losing the battle for their land with the United States government. Following the capture of the Kiowa chiefs Sitting Bear, Big Tree, and Satanta, the last two paroled in 1873 after two years thanks to the firm and stubborn behaviour of Guipago, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Southern Cheyenne tribes joined forces in several battles. Colonel Ranald Mackenzie led U.S. Army forces to round up or kill the remaining Indians who had not settled on reservations.
  In 1873, Isa-tai, a Comanche claiming to be a medicine man, called for all the Comanche bands to gather together for a Sun Dance, even though that ritual was Kiowa, and had never been a Comanche practice. The bands gathered in May on the Red River, near present-day Texola, Oklahoma. At that gathering, Isa-tai and Quanah recruited warriors for raids into Texas to avenge slain relatives. Other Comanche chiefs, notably Isa-Rosa ("White Wolf") and Tabananika ("Sound of the Sunrise") of the Yamparika, and Piarʉ-ekarʉhkapʉ, often spelled as Pearua-akupakup, ("Big Red Meat" or "Red Food") of the Nokoni band, identified the buffalo hide merchants as the real threat to their way of life. They suggested that if Quanah were to attack anybody, he should attack the merchants. A war party of around 250 warriors, composed mainly of Comanches and Cheyennes, who were impressed by Isa-tai's claim of protective medicine to protect them from their enemies' bullets, headed into Texas towards the trading post of Adobe Walls. The raid should have been a slaughter, but the saloonkeeper had heard about the coming raid and kept his customers from going to bed by offering free drinks. Around 4 AM, the raiders drove down into the valley. Quanah and his band were unable to penetrate the two-foot thick sod walls and were repelled by the hide merchants' long-range .50 caliber Sharps rifles. As they retreated, Quanah's horse was shot out from under him at five hundred yards. He hid behind a buffalo carcass, and was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off a powder horn around his neck and lodged between his shoulder blade and his neck. The wound was not serious, and Quanah was rescued and brought back out of the range of the buffalo guns.
   The attack on Adobe Walls caused a reversal of policy in Washington. It led to the Red River War, which culminated in a decisive Army victory in the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon. On September 28, 1874, Mackenzie and his Tonkawa scouts razed the Comanche village at Palo Duro Canyon and killed nearly 1,500 Comanche horses, the main form of the Comanche wealth and power.
caption: Quanah Parker on horseback wearing eagle feather headdress and holding a lance bottom-up.
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