Cynthia Ann Parker (1827 - 1870) From White Captive Child to Devoted Comanche Woman

At the age of nine, on May 19, 1836, Cynthia Ann Parker was captured from Fort Parker in east Texas, near present day Groesbeck, Texas. A Comanche raid on the fort left a large number of people dead and five captives were taken. Among these was Cynthia Ann, granddaughter of Elder John Parker, her family's Patriarch. From a frightened, captive little white girl, she became a devoted wife and mother of Comanche Chiefs and she became Comanche at heart.

Four of the captives were later released after ransom, but, Cynthia Ann was to stay with the Comanche for twenty-five years. Her early life Christian teachings and ways of the whites were soon forgotten by Cynthia Ann.

Cynthia Ann was born to Lucy Duty Parker and Silas M. Parker in Crawford County, Illinois. There is some dispute about her age, for according to the 1870 census of Anderson County, Texas, she would have been born between June 2, 1824, and May 31, 1825. When she was nine years old, her family moved to Central Texas and built Fort Parker, a log fort, on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County.

After her capture by the Comanche, Cynthia Ann was adopted by a family of the tribe who learned to love and raise her as their own daughter. She learned from them the Comanche ways of the women of the People.

Peta Nocona was one of the war chiefs involved in the raid on Fort Parker. He had formed his own band of the Comanche, the Noconi. When Cynthia Ann was of marriageable age, Peta became her husband. He honored and loved her so much that he never took another wife, which was a common practice of successful war chiefs of the Comanche. They had three children, the famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, who became the last Comanche Chief, another son named Pecan, and a daughter, Topsanna ("Prairie Flower").

Cynthia Ann lived as a Comanche woman among the People who were proud, noble and rode with the wind. They were the children of Nature and lived with respect and harmony upon Mother Earth. She was happy in this life and loved her family. She was a proud, loved, and respected Comanche woman.

In December 1860, Cynthia Ann and her two year old daughter were among a Native American party captured at the Battle of Pease River by Texas Rangers, led by Lawrence Sullivan Ross. After fierce fighting, the Comanche realized they were losing and fled. Peta and his two sons survived the battle, but Peta lost his wife and daughter.

It is said that some of the Rangers urged Ross to set Cynthia Ann and her daughter free to return to the Comanches. He considered it best, however, to return her to her white family. Ross sent her to Camp Cooper and sent a message to Colonel Isaac Parker, the uncle of a young girl kidnapped in the 1836 raid. When Parker mentioned that 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.

Cynthia Ann could never readjust to her white family and their way of life. Several attempts on her part to escape and return to her Comanche family failed. She was always recaptured and locked in her room. Her brother, Silas Jr., was appointed her guardian in 1862, and took her to his home in Van Zandt County. When Silas enlisted in the Confederate Army, Cynthia Ann went to live with her sister, Orlena.

The major cause of Cynthia Ann's unhappiness was that she missed her husband and sons and never knew what had happened to them. In 1863, another great grief was added to her already unhappy life, for her daughter, Topsanna, caught influenza and died from pneumonia.

Cynthia Ann knew no other life than that of the Comanche. She was the wife and mother of the Comanche. She died mourning the loss of her Comanche family and was Comanche at heart to the last. In her grief, Cynthia Ann stopped eating. She became sick and died in 1870. She was buried in Fosterville Cemetery in Anderson County near Frankston.

Cynthia Ann never saw her husband or sons again. She never knew that Peta had never taken another wife, for he died still loving his Nadua (Cynthia Ann's Comanche name). She never knew that her eldest son, Quanah, had become the last great Comanche Chief and had bridged the gap between the whites and Comanche in order to save his People from certain starvation and death.

On October 24, 1910, Quanah, then an old man whom had never forgotten the loving arms of his mother, gave a speech to a vast Texas crowd at the State Fair who had come from all over the nation to pay homage to "The Last Comanche Chief". He stated in his speech his desire to have his mother's remains returned to him. In December 1910, Quanah's request was granted and he was able to have his Mother returned to him forty years after her death and had her reburied near his home, where he would one day lie at rest next to her.

At her funeral service, he spoke of how she was captured by the Comanche and how she grew to love the People and never wanted to return to her white family. "I love my mother," Quanah said with tears rolling down his cheeks.
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