Indian captive reunited with husband

 

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1838, Indian captive Rachel Plummer was reunited with her husband after spending over a year with the Comanches.
Born Rachel Parker in Illinois in 1819, she moved to Texas with her father, James W. Parker, and her family and married Luther Plummer in 1833.
In May 1836 their settlement was attacked by a large group of Indians. Five settlers were taken captive: Rachel and her son James Pratt Plummer, Cynthia Ann and John Parker, and Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg.
James Pratt was taken from Rachel, and she never saw him again. Rachel became a slave to the Comanches, and traveled thousands of miles with the band. Continued

Rip Ford’s Risky Ranger Raid

Believed to be several of Rip Ford's men.

(Historynet) ... Governor Runnels had decided the only way to check the Comanches was to send Texas Rangers on a preemptive strike over the border into the heart of Comancheria without federal permission.
Rip Ford seemed the perfect choice to head such a force. He had fought with the Texas Mounted Rifles during the Mexican War, earning the nickname “Rip” for his habit of scrawling “Rest in peace” beside the name of each deceased when compiling company casualty lists.
In 1849 he’d signed on as a captain with the Texas Rangers, and for the next two years his company had fought hostile Indians along the Rio Grande. Ford had then taken a six-year hiatus to pursue political and civilian ventures before Runnels appointed him senior captain of all the Rangers in January 1858, tasking him with running down the Comanches. Continued

Battle of Pease River

Quanah Parker sitting next to a portrait of his mother, Cynthia Ann

(Wikipedia) The Battle of Pease River occurred on December 18, 1860, near the present-day town of Margaret, Texas in Foard County, Texas, United States. The town is located between Crowell and Vernon within sight of the Medicine Mounds just outside present-day Quanah, Texas.
A monument on that spot marks the site of the battle between a group of Comanche Indians (mostly women and children) and a detachment of Texas Rangers and militia under Ranger Captain "Sul" Ross. The Indian camp was attacked as retaliation against recent Comanche attacks on white settlers.
This raid is primarily remembered as the place where Cynthia Ann Parker was recovered from the Comanche who had captured her twenty-four years earlier. Continued

The Staked Plains Horror

Buffalo Soldier Tragedy Memorial

(Wikipedia) Buffalo Soldier tragedy of 1877 also known as the "Staked Plains Horror" occurred when a combined force of Buffalo Soldier troops of the 10th Cavalry and local buffalo hunters wandered for days in the dry Llano Estacado region of north-west Texas and eastern New Mexico during July of a drought year.

The groups had united forces for a retaliatory attack on regional Native American groups who had been staging raids on white forces in the area, during what came to be called the Buffalo Hunters' War.

Over the course of five days in the near-waterless Llano Estacado, four soldiers and one buffalo hunter died. Continued

Second Battle of Adobe Walls

(Wikipedia) The Second Battle of Adobe Walls was fought on June 27, 1874, between Comanche forces and a group of 28 U.S. bison hunters defending the settlement of Adobe Walls, in what is now Hutchinson County, Texas. "Adobe Walls was scarcely more than a lone island in the vast sea of the Great Plains, a solitary refuge uncharted and practically unknown." Continued

Quanah's little arrow

The Texas Panhandle is dotted with giant arrows marking the Quanah Parker Trail, but at the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, there is a little arrow marking Quanah's journey through history. The arrow is smaller, I imagine, so that it won't appear kitschy, as compared to more tasteful efforts such as a talking fire bear or a mountain carved with the faces of politicians.

Did Quanah Parker get his kicks on Route 66?

No, of course not, the famed Comanche leader died 15 years before Route 66 was opened. However, Quanah travelled a similar route during his days on the Comancheria. According to this Quanah Parker Trail marker in Vega, Texas, Comanches travelled between Vega and Tucumcari on a fairly regular basis. It wasn't always motels and gas stations.

Indian captive reunited with husband

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1838, Indian captive Rachel Plummer was reunited with her husband after spending over a year with the Comanches.
Born Rachel Parker in Illinois in 1819, she moved to Texas with her father, James W. Parker, and her family and married Luther Plummer in 1833.
In May 1836 their settlement was attacked by a large group of Indians. Five settlers were taken captive: Rachel and her son James Pratt Plummer, Cynthia Ann and John Parker, and Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg. James Pratt was taken from Rachel, and she never saw him again. Rachel became a slave to the Comanches, and traveled thousands of miles with the band. Continued

The Quanah Parker Trail

The Quanah Parker Trail is a series of sites around the Texas Panhandle and Plains marking associations with the famous Comanche chief Quanah Parker. The trail is marked with giant arrows, such as the one above. For more information see the trail's website here.

The Shoots Far Gun

(True West) Some modern firearms “experts” argue that the Sharps Big Fifty rifle couldn’t have made Billy Dixon’s famous nearly-mile-long shot. Wanna bet? Continued

Men on Horseback

George Armstrong Custer

(NYTBR) ... If Custer illustrates how the spotlight of history sometimes shines on the wrong actor, Quanah Parker exemplifies the more deserving who get left in the shadows. One hopes a better fate awaits “Empire of the Summer Moon,” S. C. ­Gwynne’s transcendent history of Parker and the Comanche nation he led in the mid- to late 1800s. Continued

Quanah Parker