The last chief of the Comanches and the fall of an empire Dustin Tahmahkera
Late one night in 1871, a group of riders
descended on a sleeping army camp.
In minutes they stirred the camp
into a panic,
stole about 70 horses,
and disappeared.
Led by a young chief
named Quanah Parker,
the raid was the latest
in a long series of altercations
along the Texas frontier
between the indigenous people
known as the Numunu,
or Comanches,
and the United States forces sent
to steal Comanche lands
for white settlers.
Though the conflict was decades old,
U.S. Colonel Ranald MacKenzie
led the latest iteration.
From summer to winter, he tracked Quanah.
But Quanah was also tracking him,
and each time the colonel
drew near his targets,
they disappeared without
a trace into the vast plains.
The Comanches had controlled
this territory for nearly 200 years,
hunting buffalo and moving whole villages
around the plains.
They suppressed Spanish and Mexican
attacks from the south,
attempts to settle the land
by the United States from the east,
and numerous other indigenous peoples’
bids for power.
The Comanche Empire was not
one unified group under central control,
but rather a number of bands,
each with its own leaders.
What all of these bands had in common
was their prowess as riders—
every man, woman, and child
was adept on horseback.
Their combat skills on horseback
far surpassed those of both
other indigenous peoples and colonists,
allowing them to control an enormous area
with relatively few people—
probably about 40,000 at their peak
and only about 4-5,000 by the time
Quanah Parker and Ranald Mackenzie
faced off.
Born around 1848, Quanah
was the eldest child of Peta Nocona,
a leader of the Nokoni band,
and Cynthia Ann Parker,
a kidnapped white settler who assimilated
with the Comanches
and took the name Naduah.
When Quanah was a preteen,
U.S. forces ambushed his village,
capturing his mother and sister.
Quanah and his younger brother sought
refuge with a different Comanche band,
the Quahada.
In the years that followed, Quanah
proved himself as a warrior and leader.
In his early twenties, he and a young
woman named Weakeah eloped,
enraging her powerful father
and several other leaders.
They stayed on the run for a year,
attracting followers and establishing
Quanah as a paraibo, or chief,
at an exceptionally young age.
Under his leadership the Quahada band
was able to elude the U.S. military
and continue their way of life.
But in the early 1870s, the East Coast
market for buffalo hides became lucrative,
and hunters slaughtered millions
of buffalo in just a few years.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces led
a surprise attack,
killing nearly all the Quahada band’s
1,400 horses and stealing the rest.
Though he had vowed to never surrender,
Quanah knew that without bison or horses,
the Comanches faced
certain starvation in winter.
So in 1875 Quanah
and the Quahada band
moved to the Fort Sill reservation
in Oklahoma.
As hunter-gatherers,
they could not transition easily
to an agricultural way of life
on the reservation.
The U.S. government had promised
rations and supplies,
but what they provided
was wildly insufficient.
Quanah, meanwhile, was suddenly
in a weak political position:
he had no wealth or power
compared to others
who had been
on the reservation longer.
Still, he saw an opportunity.
The reservation included ample grasslands—
useless to the Comanches but perfect
for cattle ranchers to graze their herds.
He began a profitable arrangement
leasing the land to cattle ranchers,
quietly at first.
Eventually, he negotiated leasing rights
with the U.S. government,
which ensured a steady source of income
for the Comanches on the reservation.
As Quanah’s status on the reservation
and recognition from government officials
grew,
he secured better rations,
advocated for the construction
of schools and houses,
and became one of three tribal judges
on the reservation court.
Tired of speaking with multiple leaders,
the U.S. government wanted to appoint
one chief of all Comanches—
a role that hadn’t existed
outside the reservation.
Still, many Comanches supported
Quanah for this role,
just as several older leaders
had supported him
to lead them against
the U.S. armed forces.
Even Quanah’s former adversary,
Ranald MacKenzie,
advocated for his appointment.
Quanah acted in Hollywood movies
and befriended American politicians,
riding in Theodore Roosevelt’s
inauguration parade.
Still, he never cut his long braids
and advocated for the Native American
Church and the use of peyote.
He began to go by Quanah Parker,
adopting his mother’s surname,
and tried to track down
his mother and sister,
eventually learning they had both
died shortly after their capture.
Quanah adapted again and again—
to different worlds, different roles,
and circumstances that would seem
insurmountable to most.
Though he wasn’t without critics,
after Quanah’s passing,
Comanches began using the term “chairman”
to designate the top elected official
in the tribe,
recognizing him
as the last chief of the Comanches
and a model of cultural
survival and adaptation.
In that spirit, today’s Comanche Nation
looks towards the future,
with over 16,000 enrolled citizens
and countless descendants.