Kwanah, last chief of the Comanche

Ozona—The last chief of the Comanche nation, Quanah Parker (Kwanah), never lost a battle to the Union Army. His band, the Kwahadi, or the "Antelope" people, roamed from the Llano Estacado in the panhandle, south to the Pecos and Devils River area of Dry River Country. He was never captured by the “blue coats,” instead, he led the Kwahadis to the reservation at Fort Sill when he saw that there was no alternative for the Comanche. They were the last tribe in the Staked Plains to come into the reservation system. 

Kwanah, meaning "sweet smell or a bed of flowers," was born about 1850 near an alkaline lake bed in Gaines County, the son of Comanche Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, a white girl taken captive during the 1836 raid on Fort Parker. Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured against her will along with her daughter, Prairie Flower, during an 1860 raid on the Pease River in the Texas panhandle. She had lived as a Comanche for 24 years and never readjusted to living with her white family. 

She passed away in Anderson County four years later, shortly after Prairie Flower. Her family said she was heartbroken after her daughter died a few months earlier and believed her entire family was gone. Ironically, Cynthia Ann's son would adjust remarkably well to living among the white men, but first, he would lead a bloody war against them. 

Kwanah, as chief of the Kwahadi Comanche, following his father Peta Nocona, refused to accept the provisions of the 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge, which confined the southern Plains Indians to a reservation, promising to clothe the Indians and turn them into farmers in imitation of the white settlers. 

Knowing of past lies and deceptive treaties of the "White man," Kwanah decided to remain on the warpath, raiding in Texas and Mexico and out-maneuvering Army Colonel Ronald S. Mackenzie and others. He was almost killed during the attack on buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle in 1874. The U.S. Army was relentless in its Red River campaign of 1874-75. Kwanah and the Kwahadi were weary and starving.

Mackenzie finally sent Jacob J. Sturm, a physician and post interpreter, to plead his case and solicit the Kwahadi 's surrender. Sturm found Kwanah, whom he called "a young man of much influence with his people. Kwanah rode to a mesa, where he saw a wolf come toward him, howl and trot away to the northeast. Overhead, an eagle glided lazily and then whipped his wings in the direction of Fort Sill," in Strum’s words. This was a sign, Kwanah thought, and on June 2, 1875, he and his band surrendered at Fort Sill in present-day Oklahoma.

His biographer, Bill Neeley wrote: "Not only did Kwanah pass within the span of a single lifetime from a Stone Age warrior to a statesman in the age of the Industrial Revolution, but he accepted the challenge and responsibility of leading the whole Comanche tribe on the difficult road toward their new existence."

Reservation agents were political appointees of the Federal Government who were intent on destroying all vestiges of the Native American lifestyle. However, while Kwanah did endeavor to assimilate some of the White man’s culture, he did it his way. He did not give up his tribe’s tradition of polygamy, having multiple wives, or the use of peyote.

He negotiated grazing rights with Texas cattlemen and invested in a railroad. He learned English, became a reservation judge, lobbied Congress, and pleaded the cause of the Comanche Nation. Among his friends were cattleman Charles Goodnight and President Theodore Roosevelt. He considered himself a man who tried to do right both to the people of his tribe and to his White friends, but it wasn't easy.

Mackenzie appointed Kwanah Parker as the chief of the Comanche shortly after his surrender, but some of the elders and other chiefs resented Kwanah’s youth and his White blood. In 1892, Kwanah signed the Jerome Agreement that broke up the reservation, the Comanche were split into two factions: those who realized that all that could be done had been done on their behalf; and those who blamed Kwanah for selling out their nation. 

Quanah Parker died on Feb. 23, 1911. He was laid to rest next to his mother, whose body he had reentered at the Ft. Sill military cemetery on Chiefs Knoll in Oklahoma only three months earlier. For his courage, integrity and tremendous insight, Quanah Parker’s life weaves a narrative about one of our greatest leaders and a true hero of the people.