The Plan For Revenge Is Disrupted By Quanah Parker

Howdy folks, greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We're in a series about the Wild West and the incredible story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas.

He's now 17-18 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior who hates and fears the White man. And in fact, has taken many a scalp. He's been with the Comanche for a couple of years now.

Yesterday's post

In the last post Hermann's village was brutally attacked by U.S. soldiers and Tankawa Indians.

The band swore vengeance but first they had to bury their dead, mourn, move to a safer location and then gather forces from remaining tribe remnants.

Enter the great Quanah Parker

When they moved far away up into the Northern Plains they were once again visited by Quanah Parker.

I say "once again" because he had talked the Apache band, which Hermann was part of, into going to the reservation a few years before.

For those who missed the earlier posts, Quanah has a very interesting story because his mother was a white lady who was captured by Comanches in Texas in 1836.

Here he is in full tribal regalia:

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Quanah was one of her sons and he became one of the greatest Comanche chiefs. After he led a 700 warrior coalition of tribes on an attack against a small group of buffalo hunters fortified in an adobe church and lost because of the superior weapons of the hunters... he saw the writing on the wall.

As the Great Plains were invaded by tens of thousands of settlers each year in an unstoppable wave of expansion he knew the time of the free roaming Indian was over. So he became a liaison between the white man and the Indian.

Quanah turned into an eloquent statesmen and did more than any other person to bring the two sides together, saving countless lives in his tireless efforts. Here he is as statesman:

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Quanah's argument

He told the tribe that the days of the wild Indian was over, that they were surrounded with numbers as the stars in the sky, and that they would all be killed if they didn't go onto the reservation.

He said the Great White Father in Washington would give them houses, would feed them, and that in time they would be like the white man with lots of good horses and cattle and nice clothes to wear.

He promised them that if they went with him to Fort Sill that no harm would come to them and they wouldn't be hurt in any way and that all would be well with them.

The debate raged

Obviously the band was torn. On one hand you had the greatest chief of their time urging them to come in and they respected him. On the other hand they knew they would be giving up the ability to live in their own homes.

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They could no longer be warriors which was their way of life.

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They would no longer be free to roam the plains and hunt as they want.

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They would no longer be able to teach their children the ways of the Indian.

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Instead, they would be penned up like cattle in a small compound under the suspicious eye of the white soldier.

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And the worst part...and they didn't know this at the time or they probably would have chosen death...their children would be taken from them and sent to "Boarding School"(re-education and indoctrination centers) back East where they would be told that everything about their culture was evil and wrong.

If that ain't child abuse I don't know what is.

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We'll see if the band is willing to give up their sworn vengeance in the next post. To not avenge the death of a tribe member was to dishonor that member.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas