Cynthia Ann Parker

Cynthia Ann Parker, or Naduah (also sometimes spelled "Nadua" and "Nauta," meaning "someone found" or "Keeps Warm With Us"), (circa 1825-1827 - March 1871) was an American who was captured and kidnapped at the age of nine by a Comanche war band, who massacred her family’s settlement. She was adopted by the Comanche and lived with them for 24 years, completely forgetting her European ways. She married a Comanche chieftain, Peta Nocona, and had three children with him, including the last free Comanche chief Quanah Parker. At age 34, she was finally "rescued" by the Texas Rangers but spent the remaining 10 years of her life refusing to adjust to life in white society. At least once she escaped and tried to return to her Comanche family and children, but was again brought back to Texas. She had difficulty in understanding her iconic status to the nation, which saw her as having been redeemed from savages. Heartbroken over the loss of her family, she stopped eating and died of influenza in 1870.

Early life
Cynthia Ann Parker was born to Silas M. Parker and Lucy Parker in Crawford County, Illinois. There is considerable dispute about her age; according to the 1870 census of Anderson County, Texas, she would have been born 1827. When she was nine years old, her grandfather John Parker was recruited to settle his family in Texas; he was to establish a fortified settlement against Comanche raids which had been devastating to the colonization of Texas and northern Mexico. Upon arriving in Texas, the Parker family moved to north-central Texas and built a log fort—which soon became known as Fort Parker—on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. Cynthia's brother James was killed on the way from Illinois to Texas when the wagon lost a wheel and he was struck through the chest with a piece of splintered wood.

Fort Parker massacre
Her grandfather, Elder John Parker, the patriarch of the family, had experience in negotiating with various Indian nations going back to the 18th century when he was a noted Ranger, Scout, Indian fighter, and soldier of the United States. Consequently, when he negotiated treaties with the local non-Comanche Indians, it was supposed by him and higher authorities that a substantial bulwark had been created to protect the rest of Texas, and that at least the local Indians would be useful allies against the Comanche. However, this was a fatal error; the Comancheria imperium did not recognize treaties signed by subject Indian nations and had such a fearsome reputation that no subject Indians would dare help the white man. Nonetheless the Parker family, its extended kin, and surrounding families established fortified bloc houses and a central citadel—later called Fort Parker—for falling back to in case of attack. John Parker and the community lacked sufficient knowledge of the Comanches' military prowess, and were unprepared for the ferocity and speed of the Indian warriors in the attack which followed.

On May 19, 1836, a force of Indian warriors—estimates of the number of warriors vary from one hundred to six hundred, but the smaller number is probably more accurate (source: S.C.Gwynne)—composed of Comanches accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies, attacked the community. John Parker and his men were caught in the open. They managed to fight a rearguard action for some of the escaping women and children, but soon they too retreated into the fort. The Indians attacked the fort and quickly overpowered the outnumbered defenders. They took John Parker, his granddaughter Cynthia Ann Parker, and some others alive. Cynthia watched as the other women were raped and the men tortured and killed. The last victim was John Parker. He was castrated and his genitals were stuffed into his mouth; he was scalped and at last killed. Cynthia Parker and five captives, after watching the horror, were led away into Comanche territory. Texans quickly mounted a rescue force. During their pursuit of the Indians one of the captives, a young teenage girl, escaped. All of the other captives were released over the years as the typical ransom was paid, but Cynthia remained with the Indians for nearly twenty-five years.

Cynthia Ann Parker and Peta Nocona
Cynthia was soon integrated into the tribe. She was given to a Tenowish Comanche couple, who adopted her and raised her like their own daughter. She forgot her European ways, and became Comanche in every sense. She married Peta Nocona, a chieftain. They enjoyed a happy marriage, and as a tribute to Peta Nocona’s great affection to Cynthia, he never took another wife, although it was traditional for chieftains to do so. The couple had three children, famed Comanche chief Quanah Parker, another son named Pecos (Pecan), and a daughter named Topsannah (Prairie Flower).

Rescue by Texas Rangers at Pease River
In December 1860, after years of searching at the behest of her surviving father and various noteworthy scouts, Texas Rangers deep in the heart of Comancheria, led by Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross discovered a band of Comanche which were rumored to hold American captives. In a surprise raid, the small band of Texas Rangers surprised a force of Comanches in the Battle of Pease River. It was not much of a battle as the majority of the Comanche band was not present in the camp; in the absence of most of the Comanche band's warriors, the Rangers massacred the helpless women and children.

After limited fighting, the Comanches realized they were losing and attempted to flee. Ranger Ross and several of his men pursued the man who they had seen giving orders. The chief was fleeing alongside a woman rider. As Ross and his men neared, the woman held a child over her head. The men did not shoot, but instead surrounded and stopped her. Ross continued to follow the chief, eventually shooting him three times. Although the chief fell from his horse, he was still alive and refused to surrender. Ross's cook, Antonio Martinez, who had been taken captive and tortured in Mexico after Nocona killed his family, identified the captured chief as Nocona. With Ross's permission, Martinez finished off the wounded Comanche.

There was a rush of exhilaration as the Rangers began questioning the woman fleeing with Nocona and other surviving Comanches for signs that she was Cynthia. When Ross arrived back at the campground, he discovered that the captured woman had blue eyes. He assured her that no young boys had been killed in the battle, so her sons, Quanah and Pecos, were safe. At last, clutching her 2-year-old daughter, Topsanna, Cynthia in broken English identified herself and her family name. Her information matched what Ross knew of the Fort Parker Massacre of 1836.

There is some question whether the man killed was actually Nocona. Cynthia Ann stating he was her personal servant, a Mexican slave called José Nakoni. Cynthia Ann's granddaughter, Nelda Parker Birdsong, said, "Out of respect to the family of General Ross, do not deny that he killed Peta Nakoni. If it is any credit to him to have killed my father, let his people continue to believe that he did so."

Realizing Cynthia had forgotten most of her English and would be unhappy if separated from the life she knew, some Rangers urged Ross to let her return to the Comanches. However, he felt it best to try to return her to her American family. Ross knew many settlers had lost children to the Indians, and many might regard her as their own child or relative. Ross sent Cynthia and her child to Camp Cooper. He then notified Colonel Isaac Parker, uncle of the girl kidnapped by the Comanches. When Parker mentioned his niece's name was Cynthia Ann Parker, the woman slapped her chest and said, "Me Cincee Ann." Isaac Parker took her to his home near Birdville, Texas.

Cynthia Ann's rescue captured the country's imagination. Tens of thousands of Texan families, and many more throughout the U.S., had suffered the loss of family members, especially children in Indian raids. Cynthia Ann was the granddaughter of a famous American patriot, a Marylander who met a violent end in far off Texas. This gained her special attention and gave hope to those who had lost relatives to the Commanche. In 1861, the Texas legislature granted Cynthia Anne a league (about 4,400 acres) of land, an annual pension of $100 for the next five years, and made her cousins, Isaac Duke Parker and Benjamin F. Parker, her legal guardians.

However, as many other accounts show, children so long held among the Indians, did not successfully re-adapt to their original life. Cynthia Ann never adjusted, and although white and physically integrated into the community, she was uncomfortable with the attention she got. Her brother, Silas Jr., was appointed her guardian in 1862, and took her to his home in Van Zandt County. When Silas was entered the Confederate Army, Cynthia Ann went to live with her sister Orlena. According to some, the cause of her unhappiness was that she missed her sons and worried about them.

Death
In 1864, Cynthia's daughter, Prairie Flower, caught influenza and died of pneumonia. Losing the only child she had contact with since her rescue caused her to be stricken with grief. She began refusing food and water and resisted attempts to save her. Cynthia Ann Parker died in March 1871 at the home of Orlena O'Quinn and was buried in Foster Cemetery on An County Road 478 in Anderson County near Poynor, Texas.

There is some confusion about her correct birth and death dates for Cynthia Ann Parker. Different sources place her birth from 1825 to 1827 in Coles, Clark or Crawford counties of Illinois, and her death from 1864 to 1871 in Anderson County, Texas. The only record of her death, given as March 1871, is found in the unpublished Susan Parker St. John, "Notebook," at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. The only known document from the period supports the March 1871 date. An 1870 census for Anderson County lists Cynthia Ann Parker as a member of the O'Quinn household. It lists her birth year as "abt 1825" and her age as forty-five.

In 1910, her son, Quanah Parker, moved her body to Post Oak Mission Cemetery near Cache, Oklahoma. When he died in February 1911, he was buried there next to her. Their remains were moved in 1957 to the Fort Sill Post Cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.


 * Foster Cemetery Anderson County, Texas 32.04227°N, -95.59908°W
 * Post Oak Mission Cemetery Comanche County, Oklahoma 34.6231°N, -98.7597°W
 * Fort Sill Post Cemetery 34.66947°N, -98.39534°W

Aftermath
The city of Crowell, Texas, has held a Cynthia Ann Parker Festival to honor the memory of Cynthia Ann Parker. The town of Groesbeck, Texas, holds an annual Christmas Festival at the site of old Fort Parker every December. The fort has been re-built on the original site to exact specifications. Several revisionist histories have grown to discuss the story in a different light. In 2010, the historian Paul H. Carlson, professor emeritus at Texas Tech University, published Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker.

Fictional and dramatic representations

 * The 1954 novel The Searchers, by Alan Le May, is loosely based on Parker's life story.
 * The classic 1956 movie The Searchers was based on Le May's novel, directed by John Ford, and featured John Wayne as an obsessed frontiersman searching for years for his kidnapped niece. It is thus also very loosely based on Parker's story. Natalie Wood and her younger sister Lana Wood portray the kidnapped woman at different ages.
 * Cynthia Parker is a one-act opera composed by Julia Smith.
 * The Dutch writer Arthur Japin also wrote a book, De Overgave (The Surrender), about the life of the Parker family and the loss of Cynthia Ann.
 * The character "Stands With A Fist" in the 1990 movie Dances With Wolves is based on Cynthia Ann Parker.
 * Season of Yellow Leaf by Douglas C. Jones is a fictionalized story of Cynthia Parker's life.
 * Gone the Dreams and Dancing, also by Jones, is a fictionalized story of Quanah Parker, Cynthia's son, after he surrendered at Ft. Sill Oklahoma and "walked the white man's road".
 * Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson is a fictionalized account of Cynthia Ann's capture and life among the Comanches.
 * Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer is a fictionalized account of Cynthia Ann's return to her American family.
 * The 2003 graphic novel Comanche Moon by Jack Jackson depicts the life of Cynthia Ann Parker upon her adoption by the Comanches up to the life and death of her famous son Quanah Parker.
 * In the 1957 book The Hanging Tree, a collection of short stories by Western writer Dorothy M. Johnson, the story "Lost Sister" is a fictionalized account of the recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker and her difficulty reintegrating into the white world.