After they entered the northern plains as part of the Eastern Shoshoni around 1500, the people who would become the Comanches lived along the upper reaches of the Platte River in southeastern Wyoming ranging between the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills. They got their first horses sometime around 1680 and changed dramatically within a few years. The Comanche would dominated the Southern Plains and play a prominent role in Texas frontier history throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A vast area of the South Plains, including much of North, Central, and West Texas, soon became Comanche country, or Comancheria. Only after their arrival on the Southern Plains did the tribe come to be known as Comanches, a name derived from the Ute word Komantcia, meaning enemy, or, literally, anyone who wants to fight me all the time.

Mounted on fine horses, armed with guns, bows and lances the Comanches became, perhaps the best light calvary ever to roam the Americas. They displaced most of the original Texas Indians and fought off Spaniards, Mexicans and Anglos for 150 years. The Comanches were forced onto reservations in 1874. In 1995 the Comanches had an enrolled tribal population of 9,722 scattered across the United States.

Of the great Comanche chiefs, Quanah Parker is probably the best known to Americans. His unlikely name means fragrance or sweet smell. He probably obtained his notoriety because his mother, Cynthia Anne Parker, was an Anglo-Texan. Cynthia was captured when she was nine-years old during an 1836 raid in Texas. Raised as member of the band, she married a Comanche, and they had three children. In 1860 she was recaptured by Texas Rangers and her husband killed. Quanah escaped and later became a leader among the Kwahada. Reunited with her white relatives, Cynthia only wished to return to her son and the Comanches. She died in 1864 shortly after the death of her daughter. Prairie Flower.

For more information on Quanah Parker, from Look Smart and the Comanches try these sites.

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