Returned to the Unknown

I can’t even begin to imagine how it feels to be pulled from your family and traditions. When I read Lost Sister by Dorothy M. Johnson, Aunt Bessie’s sadness radiated from the page as she was confined to a home that she did not know and her only escape was to stand looking out a window day after day. I was surprised to learn that this particular story was loosely based on the story of Cynthia Anne Parker, daughter of the Parker family from modern day North Texas.

                In 1836, a group of Comanche Indians attacked Fort Parker and captured five people, one of which was Cynthia Anne Parker. She was around nine years of age. She grew up within the tribe and forgot her white ways. She married a Comanche warrior and had three children with him. She was given the name Naudah which in the Comanche language translates to “Someone found.” To the Comanche Indians she was found, not taken.  In 1860, she was recaptured by Sul Ross and his men at the “Battle” at Pease River. It was not much of a battle as the tribe was “caught completely off-guard and massacred” (Selcer 30).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cynthia.jpg

They discovered that one of the Indian women they had captured had blue eyes and eventually realized that they had found Cynthia Anne Parker. She was returned to her “white” family. I put quotations around white because she also had her Indian family that she was torn away from. She had spent more than 20 years with the Comanche Indians and learned their ways. The Comanche Indians were her family yet she was still returned to the Parker family to spend her last years depressed from being pulled away from her tribe and her way of life. The story Lost Sister may have been loosely based but I am sure that the feelings that Aunt Bessie felt were similar to how Cynthia must have felt.

                As I said before, Cynthia Anne had three children and one of them became a very famous figure in history. Just like in Lost Sister, Cynthia Anne’s Indian son was an important leader. Unfortunately, she was never able to see him again. His name was Quanah Parker and he was born into the Indian culture but embraced his white side and bridged the gap between the two worlds.

                Quanah had “the high cheekbones of his father’s people and the blue eyes of his mother’s, but his face was all Comanche” (Selcer 31). It seems that he also received his father’s leadership skills as his father was the tribe’s chief and Quanah came to be well respected by both Indians and Whites. As the Indian culture was being destroyed by the white man, Quanah did his best to save what he could. He knew that if he wanted to have anything done for his people he would have to play by the rules of the government.  The government appointed Quanah the chief leader of the Comanches after they were forced to surrender and settle down on reservation lands. Quanah encouraged “the Comanches to take up ranching and farming, educate their young in government schools and sign contracts with whites” (Selcer 32).

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                I feel as though Quanah felt guilty for his mother being taken away from her white heritage and that is why he felt obligated to embrace that side of his culture. Maybe he felt as though it would bring his mother closer to him. In almost every article I read, they talked of how much Quanah loved his mother. They truly had a special bond and long after she had died he even had her remains moved near to his home in Oklahoma so that one day they would be buried near each other. Although she wasn’t able to live out her life in freedom I am sure that her spirit is in peace now that she is buried next to her son. It reminds me of the end of Lost Sister when Aunt Bessie’s nephew finds her bones out in the canyon. He says,” But I would not make her a captive again. She’s in the family album. She doesn’t need to be in the family plot” (Johnson 96).

CARLSON, PAUL H., and TOM CRUM. "The "Battle" At Pease River And The Question Of Reliable Sources In The Recapture Of Cynthia Ann Parker." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 113.1 (2009): 32-52. America: History and Life with Full Text. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.

Margaret Schmidt Hacker, "PARKER, CYNTHIA ANN," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpa18), accessed April 02, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Selcer, Richard. "Quanah Parker. (Cover Story)." Wild West 20.4 (2007): 28-35. Bibliography of Native North Americans. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.