![]() Quanah was no older than seventeen when his father passed on to the spirit world and might have been a year younger than that. Peta Nocona, in Quanah's words, was "very morose and unhappy. Yet by capturing Nadua and killing the chief's Spanish wife, Ross did hasten the decline of the aging and grieving war chief. Though the self-serving Ross achieved instant celebrity as the supposed slayer of the dragon that was Peta Nocona, the cocky young Texan had not faced the Comanche war chief in battle. Men of a lower status in society would have protected the women. There would have been no reason culturally for Peta Nocona to have been present when the attack occurred. After the kill, they usually retired to a game of chance or perhaps a horse race. What self-respecting Comanche war chief would hang around a group of women packing meat? A captive named Nobah, according to a letter from Quanah to Goodnight, watched over the women. It made no sense for Peta Nocona to have been with the women as they packed bison meat to take back to the village a few miles west of the site on Mule Creek where it empties into Pease River west of present Vernon, Texas, where the Texans attacked Comanche women packing bison hides and meat. Quanah was fifteen at that time and insisted at the Texas State Fair in Dallas in 1910 that Captain Sul Ross had not killed his father at the time of Nadua's capture. Their jealousy of Quanah would surface after Nadua was captured by Texas Rangers and soldiers led by chief scout Charles Goodnight and returned to her white family. But not all Comanches were happy with the attention his aging father and grandfather gave to the boy. Nadua was destined to bring into the world a man of great intelligence, integrity, and courage. ![]() After living with a foster family until the age of maturity, Nadua became a wife of her captor. Nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was given to a childless couple, or perhaps a widow, to be raised as a Comanche woman. Members of those tribes helped make up the large war party, along with Kiowas, all intent on revenge and to let the white men behind the log walls of the fort know who really ruled the land. ![]() Pohebits Quasho probably rode with his son against the fort to avenge earlier Texans' attacks on Waco and Caddo villages in Texas. Peta Nocona captured nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker in 1836 from the fort built by her family and other parishioners of the two-seed Baptist church brought from Illinois to Texas. Leaders from both sides of the blue-eyed Comanche's parentage were notable in their respective societies: the Parkers in Texas politics and religion and the Comanches in war, the hunt, and in their personal spiritual and military journeys, and, in Quanah's case, a lot of diplomacy. Some Comanches, on the other hand, saw Quanah's prominence as preferential treatment from his white "tribe," and "quanah" to them meant "you stink." The truth was that the half-blood Comanche was ALL Comanche in language, religion, custom, fighting prowess, and his strong sense of responsibility for the young and elderly. To the white settlers and politicians, he would be a Comanche with a twist: his greatness, they thought, came from his mother's side. ![]() After delivering Quanah in a meadow of wildflowers in the triangle formed where Elk Creek empties into the North Fork of Red River, Nadua, Someone Found (no longer Cynthia Ann), named the blue-eyed boy Quanah, meaning fragrant. Quanah grew stronger and developed under his father Peta Nocona, as well as his formidable grandfather Pohebits Quasho, or Iron Jacket as he was known from the Spanish armor he wore in battle. Being of two bloods, Quanah often suffered taunts from the full bloods his age, but their attempts to reduce the son of a white captive had the opposite effect from the one intended. Conflict would be his constant companion from the time he was pitted against other boys in tests of strength to prepare them for battle, until he surrendered his lance to Brevet General Ranald Mackenzie at Fort Sill in 1875. The newborn was not destined to enjoy for any length of time, however, the sweet repose of a Comanche village secure from all enemies, native and white. Quanah's Greatest Challenge By Bill NeeleyĬoming into the world from the womb of a white mother, sired by a prominent Comanche chief, a blue-eyed baby boy drew his first breath of pure mountain air perfumed by the scent of wildflowers. ![]()
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