Frontier blood : the saga of the Parker family / Jo Ella Powell Exley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Exley, Jo Ella Powell, 1940-

Series:

Centennial series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University ; no. 90.

The centennial series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University ; no. 90

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pioneers--Texas--Biography.

Pioneers.

History.

Comanche Indians.

Texas.

Southern States.

Parker family.

Frontier and pioneer life--Texas.

Frontier and pioneer life.

Parker, Cynthia Ann, 1827?-1864.

Parker, Cynthia Ann.

Parker, Quanah, 1845?-1911.

Parker, Quanah.

Comanche Indians--Texas--History--19th century.

Indian captivities--Texas.

Indian captivities.

Texas--History--19th century--Biography.

Pioneers--Southern States--Biography.

Frontier and pioneer life--Southern States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 331 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

College Station : Texas A & M University Press, [2001]

Summary:

The descendants of Elder John Parker were a strange and often brilliant family who may have changed the course of Texas and western history. Their obsession with religion and their desire for land took them from Virginia to Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, and finally Texas. From their midst came Cynthia Ann, taken captive by Comanches as a young girl and recaptured as an adult to live in grief among her birth family until she died. From their line too came her son, Quanah Parker, last of the great Comanche war chiefs -- and first of their great peace leaders.

Though the broad outlines of the stories of Cynthia Ann and Quanah are familiar, Jo Ella Powell Exley adds a new dimension by placing them in the context of the stubborn, strong, contentious Parker clan, who lived near and dealt with restive Indians across successive frontiers until history finally brought them to Texas, where their fate changed. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary accounts, including several first-person stories, she follows Cynthia Ann through her life in the Indian camp and eventually her recapture by her birth family. Exley also tells the dramatic story of Quanah Parker, often in his own words as recorded by his friends, through childhood, battle, surrender, and reservation life.

This gripping narrative is filled with authentic flavor and sets straight a story that has sometimes been distorted. It offers new insight if not a definitive interpretation of Cynthia Ann Parker's last years, providing a more complex picture of the "white" years of a woman who had matured among the Comanches since the age of nine.

Among the documents from which Exley draws are a short autobiography of Daniel Parker, Rachel Parker Plummer's two narratives of her Indian captivity, James Parker's account of his search for Rachel and the other captives, and several autobiographical accounts Quanah dictated to his friends.

In this fascinating narrative history, Exley tells a compelling story and gives rich character insights into the extended Parker family. But she also does more: she gives a feeling of what it was like to live on the frontier in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Contents:

Part I. Daniel

1. A Poor Sinner 3

2. The Wrong Road 11

3. Plain and Unpolished

The Diamond in the Rough State 24

Part II. Rachel

4. Father, Forgive Them 41

5. Vengeance Is Mine 61

6. How Checkered Are the Ways of Providence 82

Part III. James W.

7. The Tongue of Slander 97

8. The House of God 106

9. Sundry Charges 113

10. Called Home 122

Part IV. Cynthia Ann

11. Miss Parker 133

12. The Hand of Savage Invasion 144

13. The Long-Lost Relative 165

14. Thirsting for Glory 183

15. It Was Quanah 202

16. So Many Soldiers 219

17. Blood upon the Land 231

18. I Lived Free 252.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [303]-321) and index.

ISBN:

1585441368

OCLC:

46835787