An excellent book: “Empire of the Summer Moon”

I never would have selected this book on my own, but fortunately a reader suggested it, and I’m very glad. The book, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S. C. Gwynne III, is a history of the Native Americans of the Great Plains extending from about 1830 to the beginning of the 20th century. This is the period when all the tribes (the book calls them “Indians”, not “Native Americans”)—and there were many tribes and sub-tribes—came into conflict with Mexicans and with Americans moving West, and we know how that ends.

The history centers on the Comanches, the dominant tribe on the plains, though there was never one hierarchical tribe but a series of sub-tribes that were loosely affiliated as a “nation” and would sometimes join forces or fragment. Gwynne did a great deal of historical research using primary documents, and the result is a informative but mesmerizing tale, one that is hard to put down.

The Comanches were nomads, ranging widely over the Great Plains from Colorado to Texas.  Their “villages” were only temporary, and would be moved (by women, who did the heavy lifting) from place to place during wars or buffalo hunts.  And those were really their two primary activities: killing members of other tribes and killing buffalo, which were then so numerous then that their herds could extend to the horizon.  An important part of Comanche culture was the horse; Comanches were nearly always mounted in war or on the hunt, with horses descended from those brought to the Americas by the Spanish.  As you can see from the photo of a Comanche warrior below, the horses were small, descended from wild mustangs caught and “broken” with great skill.  Comanches also specialized in stealing horses from other tribes and from settlers and the American military. Horses were their riches.

Comanche horsemanship was superb, largely accounting for their success against other tribes and against settlers. They were able, for instance, to ride sideways on the horse’s flank, not visible to enemies on the other side, and shoot arrows (with tremendous accuracy) from below the horse’s neck. Until they managed to get firearms from the settlers and soldiers, they used arrows and lances, and that is how they brought down buffalo.  (The butchering, of course, was done by the women.)

I won’t go into detail about the lives and wars of the Comanche, except to say that the book imparts three lessons about Native Americans on the plains:

First, they did not “own” land or even occupy it. As I said, they were nomadic, and many other Native American tribes, including Apaches, Cherokees, Kickapoos, and Arapaho, roamed the same territory.  This bears on the present-day conflict about repatriating artifacts and human remains to tribes that claim them.  For artifacts or bones found on the Great Plains (and elsewhere, of course) cannot be ascribed to a given tribe without DNA analysis, which is almost never done, or if there are distinctive signs from the artifacts identifying them as belonging to a given group. Since this is rarely possible, it becomes a crapshoot about what to do about repatriating Native American artifacts, most of which now have to be returned to a tribe that claims them before scientists or anthropologists get to study them. Read the books and writings of Elizabeth Weiss to learn more about this conflict.

Second, war was a way of life for the Comanche; they were always at war with one tribe or another—even well before white settlers moved West. The view that all was peaceful among Native Americans until white settlers invaded “Indian” land and displaced the residents is grossly mistaken. Young men were trained for war beginning at five or six, and the youths were skillful with the horse and the bow.  Comanche life without war was unthinkable, and the men prided themselves, and rose in rank in their groups, largely through skill in warfare.  In the end, the Comanches were diminished not because of lack of skill in fighting, but because they were outnumbered by settlers and the Army, because the Army had superior weapons, especially cannons, and because the settlers killed off their main means of subsistence: the buffalo.  The number of Comanche is estimated to have fallen from about 40,000 in 1832 to only 1,171 in 1910.  The book describes many treaties between the Comanche and the U.S. government or its agents, but these treaties were almost always broken by one side or another—or both.

Third, their life was very hard.  They subsisted almost entirely on buffalo, had to weather the brutal cold of the Plains in tipis or on horseback, often went without food or water, and of course almost never bathed. (This was tough on the women, who became covered with blood and guts when skinning buffalo.) But they prided themselves on their toughness and bravery. (women often fought alongside the men). These features were mixed with an almost unimaginable degree of cruelty towards their enemies.  Enemies who were not killed outright were tortured, and in horrible ways: scalping, cutting, and roasting to death slowly.  These acts were considered normal and not immoral, though the white settlers (who were often tortured as captives) saw them as brutal and primitive. But the Comanche were capable of great kindness as well, especially towards other members of their tribe and occasionally towards white women and children who survived battle with the tribes and were “kidnapped’ by them, many becoming, in effect, Comanches themselves.

This brings us to the centerpiece of the story: the abduction of an American woman, Cynthia Ann Parker, in a battle in 1836. She was eight years old. Parker became integrated into the tribe, learned their language (eventually forgetting much of her English) and married a Comanche chief, Peta Nocona. Among their three children was Quanah Parker, who showed tremendous skill, wisdom, and courage as a warrior, and rose through the ranks (despite being half white) to become a chief himself. The story of Quanah is the story of the decline and fall of the Comanches, limned with many battles and culminating in their surrender to American soldiers and sedentary occupation of land on a reservation, where of course they were unhappy. Quanah demonstrated his leadership skills even on the reservation and, through judicious rental of reservation land to settlers for grazing cattle, became wealthy and renowned among both whites and Native Americans. Here’s a photo of Quanah in his native clothing:

Gwynne skillfully  weaves together the story of Quanah and greater historical events, so in the end you understand not just the history of the extirpation of Native Americans, but the life of Comanches and the personalities of Quanah and his mother, Cynthia Parker. Parker herself was captured by the Texas Rangers when she was 33 and lived the rest of her life with settlers, including members of her extended family. She was never happy, and tried to escape back to the Comanches several times, but never succeeded.  She had several children, including Quanah, but was separated from her sons and left with only one daughter, Topsannah (“Prairie Flower”).  Cynthia died at 40, heartbroken.  Here’s a photo of her with Topsannah. Despite arduous efforts of settlers to assimilate Cynthia back as an American, she was always a Comanche at heart. The expression on her face tells the tale.

Here’s Quanah in 1889. As you see, he adopted many of the settlers’ ways, including their clothing, But he never cut his braids:

I’ve run on too long, but I give this book an enthusiastic recommendation and thank the reader who recommended it. Although it may strike you as something you might not like, do give it a try. (Click on the picture below to go to the publisher.) You may know about the sad history of the extirpation of Native Americans, but this book tells you, more than anything I’ve read, how at least some of them lived their lives as free men and women.