Comanche warrior5/21/2023 When Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross and scout Charles Goodnight led the attack on the women packing meat after a buffalo kill, they had hoped for a victory over the Comanche leader so feared and despised by Texans: Peta Nocona. Texans cared little for federal laws, and Quanah would find in them the greatest enemies of his life. It was an illegal act, but no one from the United States government protested the Texas Rangers' attack for two reasons: the victims were Indians, and Texas was on the verge of seceding from the Union over the issue of slavery. His grandfather, Iron Jacket, had died in battle two years earlier when Texas Rangers crossed into Indian Territory from Texas and attacked a Comanche camp along the Canadian River at Antelope Hills. ![]() ![]() All went well in Quanah's childhood until the fateful day in December 1860 when his mother was taken away from him, his younger brother and his father. Quanah grew up in that environment listening to the war exploits of his father, grandfather and other Comanche warriors. The cavalryman was astonished at the symmetry of Comanche and horse. The boy, while moving the horses to a fresh grazing area away from the village, moved effortlessly without bridle or rope across the backs of the horses as they loped along. By his teen years Quanah was a skilled horseman, much like the Comanche boy observed herding horses by a cavalry officer scouting Comanche territory. Comanches also raced Comancheros from New Mexico who came into the canyon country of the Texas Panhandle to trade goods needed by the Comanches in exchange for captives, horses, cattle, and hides. Around one of the Medicine Mounds southeast of Quanah, Texas, there are deep ruts in the soil dug out by thousands of flying hooves. He must surely have joined in the horse races that Comanche boys and men held for sport. By the time his white counterparts were in school, Quanah was shooting rabbits and even birds with his tiny arrows. He was taught to ride at full gallop and fire arrows at targets from the back of a horse, or underneath its neck. By the time he could walk, or even before, Quanah was riding horses. Young Quanah, therefore, had strong leaders among the people to teach him Comanche ways. Quanah had two powerful male figures in his life: Peta Nocona's father Pohibits Quasho, known to the whites as Iron Jacket for the coat of Spanish armor he wore in battle, and Peta Nocona. Numunu's survival as a people depended on it. Great warriors tended to be good hunters and Quanah's father had to be as he had at least two wives to care for: the captive Spanish wife and Nadua.Īs a boy Quanah was matched against other boys of his size in wrestling matches to prepare the young ones to fight. In the war dance, he was sure to have boasted of his exploits in battle. He was, no doubt, proud to exhibit his scalps in the scalp dance. His father, Peta Nocona, meaning He Who Leaves Alone and Returns, brought honor to the family because of his exploits in battle. "From the best information I have, I was born about 1850 on Elk Creek just below the Wichita Mountains," Quanah dictated to his assistant composing the letter.Īs a child, young Quanah, meaning "Odor" after the scent of the wildflowers surrounding Nadua at his birth, lived as the other boys in camp. troops to the confluence of Mule Creek and Pease River where Nadua was captured by the Rangers had since become a close friend and fellow cattleman of the adult Quanah, Chief of the Comanches. ![]() ![]() In a twist of irony defying belief, the man who led the Texas Rangers and U. That information comes from Quanah himself in response to Charles Goodnight's question about his place of birth. Nadua delivered her first born, a blue-eyed, dark skinned boy in a bed of wildflowers near the banks of Elk Creek in southwest Indian territory. Growing Up Comanche: The Making of a Blue-Eyed Warrior By Bill Neeley
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