Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

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Smith, Paul Chaat (2009). Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong. U of Minnesota Press. p.146. ISBN 978-0816674022. They introduce the conflicts between Native American Tribes and the United States as if they could be understood in isolation of any other event or time period. Meanwhile, in an effort to stop the raiding and killing, government authorities were making treaties with the Plains Indians. Treaties as it turned out that neither the Indians or the Government had any real intention of honouring. It astounds me that later, when many of the Plains Tribes surrendered and agreed to relocate to the white man’s reservations, they were held accountable and punished for breaking those same treaties that the white man so frequently broke themselves. VIRTUAL: An Evening with Historian S. C. Gwynne, Author of Hymns of the Republic". WKSU . Retrieved April 1, 2022. Still the war raged on and in time an even more devastating plague came to the Great Southern Plains in the form of the “white” buffalo hunters. The buffalo were the Comanche's primary food source, while their hides were treated and used to provide shields, blankets and clothing. The Comanche hunted buffalo for sustenance, killing only as many as they could use. The “white” buffalo hunters killed for profit, taking the hides and leaving the rest of the carcass to rot. It was not uncommon for each hunter to kill hundreds daily. It did not take long for the once prolific herds to vanish from the plains, thereby unalterably compromising the Comanche way of life.

Wow! Was this written in 1908? I was surprised and very disappointed by this book. I was taken in by the author's very good writing. The way he writes is so engaging and it reads better than most history books I've read. On occasion, white captives were adopted by the band who took them away from their homes and families. Such is the case of the best known captive of the Comanche, Cynthia Ann Parker. Cynthia Ann was captured when she was nine. She was adopted by the band who captured her. She married a Comanche known as Peter Nocona and gave birth to three children, one who would grow to become the principal war chief of the Comanche, Quanah Parker. Quanah Parker Dead. Famous Comanche Chief Once Entertalned Ambassador Bryce". New York Times. February 24, 1911 . Retrieved May 26, 2011. Quanah Parker, the famous chief of the Comanche Indian tribe, died at his home here today of pneumonia Quanah Parker's mother was a white girl who was ... The 2008 miniseries Comanche Moon featured Quanah Parker as a minor character, played by Eddie Spears.The author does not spare the reader details of the warlike nature of these people, nor does he condemn or romanticize the tragedy from hindsight. No quarter was asked by this group, nor any given, and S.C. Gwynne admirably refrains from heavy handed opining on the rights and wrongs of the long-running conflict. Gwynne never provides a full and complete image of contemporaneous white culture. He seems mostly concerned with comparing military technological and tactical differences between American settlers and whites (like a lot of popular history, Gwynne is often obsessed over military matters to the exclusion of the social, cultural, and economic). He decries how the Comanche treat their women, which is certainly fair enough. But he never notes that because of coverture laws, women in antebellum America had the legal status of property. He lingers on images of Comanche violence, but nowhere does he discuss the fact that American settlers in Texas were importing slavery and its systemic sins of forced labor, torture, rape, and extra-legal execution. Nowhere does he mention that the violence of slavery imposed by whites dwarfed the violence committed by the Comanche on almost every level. Actor Richard Angarola (1920–2008) was cast as Quanah Parker in the 1959 episode, "Tribal Justice," of the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Parker, before he becomes Comanche chief, must clear his name for causing the death of a fellow tribesman. [29]

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. Gwynne's writing style is just annoying, filled with "What happened next was one of the greatest/worst/most...." or "No one knows why...." This isn't a story being told around a cowboy campfire. Give me some facts and let me decide, thank you very much. The Parker family story was the inspiration for Allen Lemay's western masterpiece "The Searchers," subsequently filmed by John Ford in 1956, starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood. Although both book and movie were highly acclaimed, the story told there comes nowhere close to the dramatic truth of the history of the Parker family. Dixon, Olive King (1927). Life of Billy Dixon. Austin, Texas: State House Press. p.186. ISBN 0938349112. Indian" voices appear once in awhile, as if Gwynne suddenly remembered the part that comes after the colon in the book title. Most of this book is told in a very, very strongly white voice.

The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus, but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks to Jesus." Quanah Parker

The most irritating part of the book is the history of Quanah Parker himself. The most bold and interesting history comes from the first half of the book, up until the introduction of the Hays Rangers. Though Gwynne uses the term loosely, the Comanches were an “empire” in the very literal sense of the word. They came from the Wind River reg Gwynne was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and grew up mainly in New Canaan, Connecticut. He majored in history at Princeton University and graduated in 1974. [4] He also has a master's degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University, where he was awarded a graduate fellowship and studied under novelist John Barth. [2] He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, the artist Katie Maratta. [2] The result, the Walker Colt, was one of the most effective and deadly pieces of technology ever devised, one that would soon kill more men in combat than any sidearm since the Roman short sword.”The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.