Quanah Parker

Quanah Parker was a Comanche leader, the son of Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker. He resisted United States expansion during the final years of warfare on the southern plains, then surrendered with the Quahadi Comanche in 1875. On the reservation he became a successful rancher and political intermediary and played an important role in the development of the Native American Church.

Quanah appears as a child and future leader in Lucia St. Clair Robson’s Ride the Wind, while later non-fiction often follows him through the destruction of the buffalo economy and adaptation to reservation life. His career resists a simple division between resistance and accommodation: he defended Comanche interests through warfare, negotiation, business and religious leadership at different stages of his life.