From time to time, my father-in-law, who has always been as interested in American history as I am, sends me wonderful books he thinks I might enjoy reading. The latest one was written by a man named S. C. Gwynne and had the lengthy title of “Empire of the Summer Moon – Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History”. And since the last book he sent me was really good (about Kit Carson and the part he played in opening up the American West), I could hardly wait to get started.
I had always thought that the most war-like Indians who had ever inhabited the North American Continent were the Apaches and the Sioux and even the Blackfeet, but according to Gwynne, “It was the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West finally opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by the age of six and full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico, halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana, and for more than four decades, kept ever-increasing numbers of white settlers from invading their tribal lands.”
I had heard of Quanah Parker before and knew that he was considered to be the greatest (and last) chief of the Comanches, but I knew very little about how that all came to pass. It turns out that he was actually the mixed-blood son of Cynthia Ann Parker, a Scots Irish daughter of pioneer parents who was kidnapped by the Comanches from the Texas frontier in 1836 when she was only 9-years old. Over time, she grew to love her captors and became infamous as the “White Squaw” who refused to return to her relatives until 1860 when she was finally captured by the Texas Rangers and forced to do so
The more I read about the Comanches, the more I came to admire them. Their culture was built around the buffalo, which provided just about everything they needed; lots of fresh meat, tipis made of hides, fuel (dried dung), tools made from buffalo bones, bridles and saddles made of the best hides, and even the bowstrings they needed to do their raiding and stealing of horses. They were also always on the move so they did little if any harm to their environment, and when they did stay in one place for very long, they pitched their tipis next to some of the most beautiful streams in the old American West, where by day they could look out on an endless sea of lush green grass, and at night gaze up at more stars than a man could ever hope to count. And when Comanches felt safe and relaxed, they were “a noisy, jolly, rollicking, mischief-loving people who enjoyed practical jokes, games of chance, and especially singing and dancing.”
Anyway, as I was mentioning all this to my 30-something year old daughter and telling her some of my favorite parts of the book, she suddenly smiled and said, “So, what are you saying, Dad, that you would have liked to have been a Comanche?”
“Yes,” I finally admitted. “I mean, they basically had no state, no police, no strict rules of personal behavior, no organized religion, no lying politicians, and they could pretty much come and go as they pleased. In other words, they were some of the last truly free men who ever walked on this earth.”
“Dad, they used to scalp people!”
“Well, now it’s true that the Comanches used to torture and mutilate some of their enemies, but that was mainly because they wanted to scare people away from their lands. Plus, on more than one occasion, the Texas Rangers and the U.S. military wiped out whole villages of Comanches, including all the women and children. So, it was a pretty bloody period of American history by all the sides involved.”
“So, tell me, Dad, what were the Comanche women doing while their men were off having a good time fighting and stealing horses and terrorizing people?”
“Well,” I admitted, “the life of a Comanche woman wasn’t exactly easy. She was of course in charge of taking care of the children and all the domestic duties, plus she had to put up the wigwams and then take them down when the village moved, and she also had to dress and cook all the meat the warriors brought back, and tan the hides, plant corn, cultivate tobacco, all that kind of stuff.”
“In other words, you’re saying that while the Comanche men were off hunting and fishing and playing war and drinking firewater, their poor women were busy back at home 24/7 raising the kids and doing all the real work?”
“Well,” I said reluctantly, “I guess you could look at it that way.”
“Some things never really change, do they, Dad?”