The Double Kidnapping of Cynthia Ann Parker

Although she was not killed, the life of Cynthia Ann Parker ended on a hot May day in 1836 when she was taken captive by Comanche Indians. It was on that day that she became Naudah, wife of Peta Nocona, and mother to Quanah, the last Comanche Chief.

Comanche captives, as a rule, were not treated well. Torture was the norm, and most grown white men preferred to be killed outright than be taken captive by the bloodthirsty Comanche. It was also virtually unheard of for white children to be adopted into the tribe. There must have been something very special indeed about this young girl child. For while the other captives were traded off to other tribes or eventually returned to their families, they chose to keep Cynthia for their own.

By all accounts, it was a happy life, and she loved and was loved by her family and friends. She fell in love and married, and not just any man, but a chief. And her chief loved her so much that he made her his only wife when polygamy was the accepted practice. She bore him three children; two sons and one daughter, all of whom they both doted on. It was a serene, beautiful life.

There were a few offers over years to "free" Cynthia, but she repeatedly refused, stating that she was happy with her family and not interested in returning to the white world. Or said, that is, after a fashion. The Council spoke for her at this point, as Cynthia, or Naudah as she was now called, no longer spoke English or had any memory of her white family or previous life.

But that was not to matter. In 1860, US Soldiers, enraged at the Comanche for their raids on the white settlements, attacked several Comanche villages, killing and capturing many of the Comanche. Among those captured was a blue-eyed woman who spoke no English. Colonel Isaac Parker identified her as his long lost niece, Cynthia Ann. Though she pleaded to be released so she could return to her family, they refused and instead she was taken to her Uncle's home and kept a virtual prisoner. She was told that her husband had been killed, and that the whereabouts of her sons were unknown. She cut her hair short in demonstration of her grief in the Comanche fashion. She ate little and rarely spoke. Her uncle found her presence wearing, and quickly packed her and her baby daughter, Topsannah, off to stay with her sister, who found her presence no easier to bear, and she summarily sent her to stay with their brother, Silas.

But nowhere was she at home. She tried several times to run away to rejoin her family, but with no idea where they were, and no funds or means to get there, that proved impossible. Then in 1863, disaster struck again; she finally received information of what had happened to her sons; Quanah, her oldest, appeared to have vanished - his whereabouts were still unknown, and Pecos, her youngest son, had died of smallpox. Within a few months of receiving this heartbreaking information, her daughter, Topsannah, died of influenza. Cynthia no longer tried to run away. She ceased speaking altogether, and died in 1870 a broken woman, having never seen any member of her Comanche family again. Originally buried in Anderson County, she now rests beside her son, Quanah Parker, the great Comanche Chief, who took her last name in honor of her, and who had her body moved so that his could be interred beside his beloved mother whose presence they were both denied in life and would not be cheated of in death.

Sources:

Margaret S. Hacker - " Cynthia Ann Parker The Life and the Legend"
http://www.meyna.com/caparker.html