Quanah Parker’s Surrender

Colonel Ranald Mackenzie had been searching for Quanah Parker and his band on the western side of Comancheria which is described as the area that the Comanche tribe once roamed. At its strongest point, the tribe roamed from the area which is now New Mexico to West Texas. Quanah’s band was the Quahada, one of several spellings of the name.

Quanah Parker is generally said to be one of the organizers of the Quahada band, considered to be one of the fiercest groups of Comanches. The overall effectiveness of the Native American resistance is considered to have diminished after the Second Battle of Adobe Walls which began at dawn on June 27, 1874 and lasted for three days. A consolidation of Comanche (led by Isatai, a medicine man, and Quanah Parker), Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho warriors attacked about twenty-eight hunters at the location, a small group of structures with log and sod walls. The hunters were armed with their long range rifles. The seige and battle lasted a few days, as noted. On both sides, the death toll was relatively low, numbered at about three Anglos and less than two dozen from the tribes before the warriors withdrew. However, the Native American combatants were successful in killing or capturing virtually all the hunters’ horses, mules and oxen at Adobe Walls. The battle was small when compared with others and resulted in a standoff, but it was consequential because it amounted to the last major engagement between the tribes and Anglos in the area. This gave rise to more settlement although there continued to be scattered raids on settlers thereafter.

Colonel Mackenzie had limited engagements in the latter part of the year, including two in September when he and his troops took control of several villages, one of which was in Palo Duro Canyon. Once in control, they proceeded to capture and kill hundreds of horses so that they could not be used again in battle. There were other engagements in the North Texas and Red River area.

The next spring, Colonel Mackenzie had been searching for Quanah and his band. According to author Bill Neeley in his book “The Las Comanche Chief, The Life and Times of Quanah Parker,” Mackenzie believed that they might be headed south toward the Pecos River in order to ford it at Horsehead Crossing. Mackenzie did not succeed in catching up with them before he received word that he had been assigned to take command at Fort Sill, located north of the Red River in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. From Fort Sill, the Army sent out messengers to known tribal leaders, seeking to encourage them to come to the reservation. A little less than two hundred of them surrendered on April 18, 1875, led by Wild Horse, Mow-Way and Long Hungry, but not Quanah, of the Comanche. Various Kiowa leaders also surrendered in the spring of 1875.

About a week later, Colonel Mackenzie reached out to the Quahadi through Dr. Jacob J. Sturm, described as post physician and interpreter, along with several Comanches from the reservation. Author Neeley added that Dr. Sturm was married to a Caddo woman. According to genealogy records, her name was Sun-wit Long Hat. She and Dr. Sturm had at least five children, three daughters and two sons. Dr. Sturm had earlier worked with native tribes near Fort Belknap in the late 1850s before moving to the Indian Territory. He remained there during the Civil War and worked to feed and care for the remaining natives who were at the location.

After following the guides and visiting Comanche several camps, on May 1, 1875 Dr. Sturm and the Comanche scouts came to Quanah’s encampment near the present community of Gail in what is now Borden County. Quanah had camped near a low geological feature, a butte now known as Mushaway Peak. Its maximum elevation is about 2,860 feet above sea level and almost 400 feet above the surrounding plains. It is believed to have been created by erosion over thousands and thousands of years. Visible from miles around, it became a landmark for the tribes, the Army, Comancheros, settlers and hunters alike and at least for a time, the site of a trading village for the tribes.

Dr. Sturm kept a journal of his observations. Though no copies or transcriptions of the document can be easily found, it was quoted by various other authors in their work. Neeley quotes Sturm as saying that he and the scouts rode up on Quanah’s camp and were peacefully received. After greeting the Quanah and the group they gave gifts to them and were invited into the tent of the medicine man, Esa-Tai, where they asked them to to surrender and return to Fort Sill with them. Quanah and the medicine man spoke to the people in support of the proposition and the people agreed. After Sturm and the scouts had been a couple of days in the camp, Quanah and the group started back toward Fort Sill. The trip to Fort Sill took a few days under a month. The parties arrived in early June, 1875. Neeley quotes author Ernest Wallace in describing the first meeting between Quanah Parker and Colonel Mackenzie as being “undramatic,” though one can only imagine what thoughts and emotions may have been experienced by the two.

From time to time, Quanah was released by Mackenzie to leave the reservation and attempt to encourage other holdouts to come to Fort Sill. On one such occasion in the summer of 1877, there was another encounter with the Army in Gaines County forty to fifty miles north and west of Mushaway Peak. The Army, Company A of the 10th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) led by Captain Nicholas Nolan had been in pursuit of a particular Comanche chief and 170 of his warriors and their families in the Llano Estacado. The chief had recently been killed near Yellow House Canyon, in what is now Lubbock County, after which his warriors disbursed. While searching for the warriors near a water source called Cedar Lake, Nolan and his troops sighted a group of about six Native Americans approaching them, displaying a white flag. The group included Quanah and several others. Quanah presented Captain Nolan with a document signed by Mackenzie allowing him to leave the reservation and try to get more Comanches to return to the Fort. Not all Army officers were in support of Mackenzie’s working with Quanah and Captain Nolan would have likely been in that group, but Quanah and his party were allowed to go on their way.

After his surrender in Texas, Quanah lived another thirty-six years near Lawton, Oklahoma near Fort Sill. He died in March, 1911 and is buried on the grounds at Fort Sill.

Sources:

Neely, Bill, “The Las Comanche Chief, The Life and Times of Quanah Parker,” John Wiley and Sons, 1995.

Richardson, Rupert Norval, “The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement,” Eakin Press, 1996.

Hämäläinen, Pekka, “The Comanche Empire, Lamar Series in Western History,” New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

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