Quanah Parker - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Quanah Parker's mother, Cynthia Ann Parker (born ca. 1827), was a member of the large Parker frontier family that settled in east Texas in the 1830s. She was captured in 1836 (at age nine) by Comanches during the raid of Fort Parker near present-day Groesbeck, Texas. Given the Indian name Nadua (Someone Found), she was adopted into the Nocona band of Comanches. Assimilated into the Comanche, Cynthia Ann Parker later married the warrior Peta Nocona, (also known as Noconie, Tah-con-ne-ah-pe-ah, or Nocona). His father was the renowned chief Iron Jacket, famous among the Comanche for wearing a Spanish coat of mail.

Nadua and Nocona's first child was Quanah (Fragrance), born in the Wichita Mountains of southwestern Oklahoma. Biographer Bill Neeley cites a letter Quanah wrote late in life to his friend, rancher Charles Goodnight, in which Quanah stated, “From the best information I have, I was born about 1850 on Elk Creek just below the Wichita Mountains.” Author S.C. Gwynne supports the Oklahoma claim in his 2010 book, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.

However, another account disputes the birthplace, contending that in 1911 Parker was seen traveling by automobile near Lubbock, Texas, telling observers he was going to visit what he understood to be his birthplace at Laguna Sabinas (Cedar Lake) in Gaines County, Texas.

Nadua and Nocona also had another son, Peanuts, and a daughter, Topsana (Prairie Flower). In December 1860, Nadua (Cynthia Ann) and Topsana were captured in the battle of Pease River, which actually took place along Mule Creek. American forces were led by Sgt. John Spangler, who commanded Company H of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry, and Texas Rangers under Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Quanah, his brother Peanuts, and his father Peta Nocona were almost certainly not at Mule Creek. However, in an effort to further his political career, Sul Ross later fabricated a story wherein he claimed to have killed Peta Nocona at Pease River. Ross would later become a Texas state senator, and eventually governor.

Meanwhile, Nadua (Cynthia Ann) and her daughter Topsana were reunited with her white family, but after having made her life 24 years with the Comanche, she wanted to return to them and her sons. However, Topsana died of an illness in 1863. Cynthia Ann Parker died in 1870.