Quanah Parker – The Last Chief of the Comanche

Born in 1845 to Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker was the last chief to the Kwhandi band.

His mother was captured by the Comanche when she was 9 years old and had since embraced the Comanche way of life.

She was one of the few white settlers who refused to return to her people. Quanah Parker became chief himself at a relatively young age, and would lead the last resistance of the Plains Indians against the US Army and the Texas Rangers.

And even though his attempts at a continued Comanche way of life failed, he was the one who led his people on “the white man’s road” in the years that followed, thus becoming the first sole chief of the whole Comanche nation.

As a skilled diplomat, Quanah represented Comanche interests to the US government and was a familiar figure in Congress, traveling many times to Washington DC.

Here he befriended many public figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, who personally invited the Comanche chief to his presidential inauguration in 1905.

Quanah Parker also became a successful farmer, businessman and stockholder in the Quanah, Acme, and Pacific Railway.

He was also directly interested in settling his people and to consolidate their position, by being given an education and learning agriculture.

He was loved by both Indians and whites alike, and at his funeral in 1911, some 1,500 formed a procession more than 2 miles long.