Peta Nocona
Encyclopedia
Peta Nocona was a chief of the Comanche
band Noconi. He led his tribe during the extensive Indian Wars
in Texas
from the 1830s to 1860. He was the son of the Comanche chief Iron Jacket
and father of chief Quanah Parker
. His band Noconis, or Wanderers, or travellers were named after him. Nocona
, Texas
is named after the Noconi leader.
Despite Sul Ross's claim that Nocona was killed at Pease River, his son insisted he was not present, and died several years later. This claim is supported by Texas historian John Henry Brown
. Brown had already disputed the identity of the person killed at Mule Creek, before Quanah came onto the reservation, stating he was told the name of the man killed at Pease River was Mo-he-ew, not Peta Nocona. Quanah then wrote an affidavit disputing his father's death: "….while I was too young to remember the chief it is likely that Brown was correct…." http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/Who-Killed-Chief-Peta-Nocona.htm
was born to Silas M. Parker and Lucy Duty Parker in Crawford County, Illinois
. There is considerable dispute about her age, as according to the 1870 census of Anderson County, Texas, she would have been born between June 2, 1824, and May 31, 1825. Because of the Americans war-fighting ability against the Indians, the Mexican government had originally encouraged Americans to establish frontier settlements to block the continuing raids of the Comanche deep into Mexico. Consequently, the Parker clan, which had long history of frontier settlement and fighting was encouraged to settle in Texas. When Cynthia was nine years old, her family and extended kin moved to Central Texas and built Fort Parker, a log fort, on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. Her Grandfather, Elder John Parker
, the Patriarch of the family, had negotiated treaties with the local Indians who were subject to the Comanches, and historians conjecture that he believed those treaties would bind all Indians and that his family was safe from attack.
However, the customs of the Comanche regarding treaties made by their subjects tribes did not limit the Comanche to their reason de etre of being a raiding nation. Consequently, when the Comanche raiding season began, Fort Parker was one of the many settlements to be subject to Comanche raiding custom. Furthermore, Mexico had secretly encouraged the Comanche to launch strong raids on the settlements during Mexico's own invasion and attempted genocide of Texas during the Texas revolution. Consequently, with substantial militia forces detailed toward guarding the Texans during the Great Scrape
, all of the frontier settlements were woefully unprepared and undermanned for the invasion.
On May 19, 1836, a huge force of Comanche warriors approximately 500 strong, accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies who had also been promised by the Mexicans rich booty and hundreds of white females and slaves, attacked the fort in force, murdering most of the men, women, and children. However, the Comanche ordered that some of the children, particularly those presumed to be Parkers, spared for slavery into the tribe. Thus, after the attack, the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann. Following the defeat of Mexico in the Texas War of Independence, the new government shifted its attention toward recovering the thousands of children and women captured during the invasion. Following extensive negotiations, four of the captives from Fort Parker were released. However, Nocono and his band refused to release the grand-daughter of John Parker, considering her a prized slave. When Texas Rangers and scouts in service of the Parker clan went into Comanche territory the Nocono's went deeper into the hostile region and successfully hid their whereabouts from the rescue party. Consequently, Cynthia was tortured until under the Stockholm syndrom she identified with her kidnappers and became the sex slave of Nocono for nearly twenty-five years, ultimately completely forgeting whatever she had known as an American child, and despite being white became a Comanche.http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/btl1.html
, another son named Pecos ("Pecan"), and a daughter named Topsannah ("Prairie Flower").
However, the Texans never gave up on finding every last one of the children and women captured during the Great Comanche raid and subsequent ones in the following years. Although hundreds were either ransomed or eventually rescued in daring Texas Ranger and Scout expeditions, thousands remained in the hands of the Comanche. In reprisal, the Texans launched a series of retaliatory attacks on Comanche settlements, finally forcing the war-chiefs to sue for peace. The negotiations for the end of hostilities and the return of the captives was to take place in San Antonio. However at the subsequent negotiations, the Comanche's aggressive posture and known behavior of quickly attacking anyone led to series of confrontations during the meeting and a full scale violence in the Battle of Pease River
, Peta Nocona's wife and children were captured and his band scattered on December 18, 1860 in a battle with Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross
and his Texas Rangers
and Militia
at the Battle of Pease River
.
, which ironically was named in honor of his wife's family. After the raid he returned with his band to what he believed was a safe retreat under the sandstone bluffs of Pease River
near where Mule Creek flowed into the stream. The site was long a favorite of the Comanche, providing both cover from the fierce blue northers that hit the plains, and ample forage for their ponies, with buffalo
hunting easy from the nearby herds. But the raids of the Comanche had brought pressure in Austin
to protect the settlers, and Texas Governor
Sam Houston
had commissioned Ranger Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross
to organize a company of 40 Rangers and 20 militia to put a stop to the Indian raids. The company of 60 was based at Fort Belknap, in Parker County.http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/Who-Killed-Chief-Peta-Nocona.htm
Ross quickly ascertained that he simply did not have sufficient men to guard the frontier, and instead determined that the best way to protect the settlers was to take the offensive to the Indians. To this end, he began to scout the area for sign of Indian camps, determined to take the fight to them at the earliest opportunity. After Peta Nocona's raid into Parker County Ross and his fighters started tracking the Nokonis, who were considered the hardiest fighters among the Comanche, who were in turn considered the fiercest of the Plains Indians. Ironically, modern research has revealed that Peta Nocona did not intend to stay at Pease River, and was preparing to move on when the attack came on his camp that December day.
It was daybreak on December 18, 1860, when Ranger Captain Ross himself scouted out the camp on the Pease River as his scouts reported the presence of a fairly large hunting party and camp on the banks of the Pease. With an oncoming blue norther blotting out sign, Ross was able to move up to literally spy out the location of the Noconas on the Mule Creek head bank as it came into the Pease River.
Ross sent a detachment of 20 men out of his force of 60 to position themselves behind a chain of sand hills to cut off retreat to the northwest, while with 40 men, Ross himself led the charge down into the Indian camp. The result was that the band was taken completely by surprise, and were massacred, either shot down where they stood, or were killed by the 20 men to the north as they attempted to flee. Though excuses were made for doing so, men, women, and children were shot indiscriminately. Indeed, Sul Ross himself wrote, quoted in Indian Depredations, by J.W. Wilbarger, that they fired at everyone present, saying "The attack was so sudden that a considerable number were killed before they could prepare for defense. They fled precipitately right into the presence of the sergeant and his men. Here they met with a warm reception, and finding themselves completely encompassed, every one fled his own way, and was hotly pursued and hard pressed."
There are two distinct and very different stories about Peta Nocona’s death. The first is that he died trying to escape with his wife and infant daughter, which is the generally believed story, and the one reported by Sul Ross officially. According to this story, seeing that the camp was hopelessly overrun, Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker fled to the east up a creek bed. Reportedly, mounted behind Nocona was a 15-year old Mexican girl, while Cynthia Ann Parker carried her two year old child, Topasannah (“Prairie Flower”). Captain Ross and his lieutenant, Tom Killiheir, pursued the man they believed to be the legendary Peta Nocona. But Quanah Parker
, the chief's oldest son, once reportedly said in Dallas to Sul Ross, "No kill my father; he not there. I want to get it straight here in Texas history. After that, two year, three year maybe, my father sick. I see him die." http://www.co.wilbarger.tx.us/BattleofPeaseRiver.htm Certainly Quanah Parker said on numerous occasions to both friend and foe that his father had survived the massacre of his Band, and died 3–4 years later of complications from old war wounds suffered against the Apaches. In this story, strongly supported by the Comanche people, Peta Nocona was out hunting with his oldest son and a few others when the attack occurred.
Strongly supporting Quanah Parker's story that his father did not die at Pease River is the fact that Quanah was introduced into the Comanche Destanyuka band, where Chief Wild Horse took him under his wing, only after his father's death, several years after Pease River. Until Nocona died, he took care of his son. Indeed, it was not until Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped back into white society that Quanah knew his mother was white, and that he was of mixed blood. His father had not told him of his white ancestry until his mother was taken from them. According to Quanah Parker and his warriors Peta Nocona was a broken and bitter man after Pease River. He was never the same after his wife was taken from him, and died somewhere around 1863-4 of complications of old war wounds fighting the Apaches, and from sorrow at the loss of his wife and infant daughter.
It must be also noted that a rare book from that period supports Quanah's claim that his father did not die at Pease River. In a book decades out of print, written in 1890, Carbine & Lance, The Story of Old Fort Sill, by Colonel W.S. Nye, the Colonel buttresses Quanah's version of the story. Ney says: "Accounts vary as to what happened. Captain Ross, who was acclaimed a hero for the deed, claimed and probably honestly believed that he had caught and killed Peta Nacona. But in the melee he pursued and shot Nawkohnee's Mexican slave, who was trying to save the fleeing Comanche women." Nye claimed that he encountered men who saw Nocona alive several years after Pease River, when he was ill with an infected war wound. This version strongly supports Quanah's claim that his father survived Pease River, and died 3–4 years later, technically of an infected wound, but more, Quanah said, from a broken heart at losing his family. Nye said what Quanah maintained, that Nocona and Parker had been an exceptionally happy couple, and the forced separation killed them both, Parker starved herself to death, and Nocona withered away.
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
band Noconi. He led his tribe during the extensive Indian Wars
Indian Wars
American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...
in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
from the 1830s to 1860. He was the son of the Comanche chief Iron Jacket
Iron Jacket
Iron Jacket was a Native American War Chief and Chief of the Comanche Indians.Iron Jacket was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man whom the Comanche believed had the power to blow bullets aside with his breath...
and father of chief Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
. His band Noconis, or Wanderers, or travellers were named after him. Nocona
Nocona, Texas
Nocona is a city along U.S. Highway 82 and State Highway 175 in Montague County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,198 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
is named after the Noconi leader.
Despite Sul Ross's claim that Nocona was killed at Pease River, his son insisted he was not present, and died several years later. This claim is supported by Texas historian John Henry Brown
John Henry Brown
John Henry Brown was an American historian, journalist, author, military leader, and a politician who served as a state legislator and as mayor of both Dallas and Galveston, Texas. Brown was among the first to publish scholarly histories of the state of Texas and the city of Dallas...
. Brown had already disputed the identity of the person killed at Mule Creek, before Quanah came onto the reservation, stating he was told the name of the man killed at Pease River was Mo-he-ew, not Peta Nocona. Quanah then wrote an affidavit disputing his father's death: "….while I was too young to remember the chief it is likely that Brown was correct…." http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/Who-Killed-Chief-Peta-Nocona.htm
Fort Parker Massacre
Cynthia Ann ParkerCynthia Ann Parker
Cynthia Ann Parker, or Naduah , was an American woman of old colonial stock of Scots-Irish descent who was captured and kidnapped at the age of nine by a American Indian band which massacred her family and...
was born to Silas M. Parker and Lucy Duty Parker in Crawford County, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. There is considerable dispute about her age, as according to the 1870 census of Anderson County, Texas, she would have been born between June 2, 1824, and May 31, 1825. Because of the Americans war-fighting ability against the Indians, the Mexican government had originally encouraged Americans to establish frontier settlements to block the continuing raids of the Comanche deep into Mexico. Consequently, the Parker clan, which had long history of frontier settlement and fighting was encouraged to settle in Texas. When Cynthia was nine years old, her family and extended kin moved to Central Texas and built Fort Parker, a log fort, on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. Her Grandfather, Elder John Parker
John Parker (pioneer)
Elder John Parker was an American Patriot, veteran of the American War of Independence, scout and minor diplomat for the American government, famous frontier Ranger, noted Indian fighter, Texan settler, and Predestinarian Baptist minister...
, the Patriarch of the family, had negotiated treaties with the local Indians who were subject to the Comanches, and historians conjecture that he believed those treaties would bind all Indians and that his family was safe from attack.
However, the customs of the Comanche regarding treaties made by their subjects tribes did not limit the Comanche to their reason de etre of being a raiding nation. Consequently, when the Comanche raiding season began, Fort Parker was one of the many settlements to be subject to Comanche raiding custom. Furthermore, Mexico had secretly encouraged the Comanche to launch strong raids on the settlements during Mexico's own invasion and attempted genocide of Texas during the Texas revolution. Consequently, with substantial militia forces detailed toward guarding the Texans during the Great Scrape
Runaway Scrape
The Runaway Scrape was the name given to the flight and subsequent hostilities that occurred, as Texan, Tejano, and American settlers and militia encountered the pursuing Mexican army in early 1836....
, all of the frontier settlements were woefully unprepared and undermanned for the invasion.
On May 19, 1836, a huge force of Comanche warriors approximately 500 strong, accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies who had also been promised by the Mexicans rich booty and hundreds of white females and slaves, attacked the fort in force, murdering most of the men, women, and children. However, the Comanche ordered that some of the children, particularly those presumed to be Parkers, spared for slavery into the tribe. Thus, after the attack, the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann. Following the defeat of Mexico in the Texas War of Independence, the new government shifted its attention toward recovering the thousands of children and women captured during the invasion. Following extensive negotiations, four of the captives from Fort Parker were released. However, Nocono and his band refused to release the grand-daughter of John Parker, considering her a prized slave. When Texas Rangers and scouts in service of the Parker clan went into Comanche territory the Nocono's went deeper into the hostile region and successfully hid their whereabouts from the rescue party. Consequently, Cynthia was tortured until under the Stockholm syndrom she identified with her kidnappers and became the sex slave of Nocono for nearly twenty-five years, ultimately completely forgeting whatever she had known as an American child, and despite being white became a Comanche.http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/btl1.html
Cynthia Ann Parker and Peta Nocona
For his role in leading the attack and the allegiance of his warriors to his leadership, Peta Nocona band was recognized as the preeminent band and became known afterwards as the Noconi or Nokone. Furthermore, as the son of a preeminent Comanche war-chief, Nocona managed to eventually become captor of Cynthia whom he made his concubine. Eventually, despite being an Anglo-Saxon by race and Texan by birth, under the influence of Peta, Cynthia was finally recognized as his wife which finally ended the continuing harrasment, abuse, and violent discrimination under Comanche life. A great tribute to his affection was that while Peta did take other concubines he never took another wife, though it was common among the Comanche for such a successful war chief to do so. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/fpa28.html The couple had three children, famed Comanche chief Quanah ParkerQuanah Parker
Quanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
, another son named Pecos ("Pecan"), and a daughter named Topsannah ("Prairie Flower").
However, the Texans never gave up on finding every last one of the children and women captured during the Great Comanche raid and subsequent ones in the following years. Although hundreds were either ransomed or eventually rescued in daring Texas Ranger and Scout expeditions, thousands remained in the hands of the Comanche. In reprisal, the Texans launched a series of retaliatory attacks on Comanche settlements, finally forcing the war-chiefs to sue for peace. The negotiations for the end of hostilities and the return of the captives was to take place in San Antonio. However at the subsequent negotiations, the Comanche's aggressive posture and known behavior of quickly attacking anyone led to series of confrontations during the meeting and a full scale violence in the Battle of Pease River
Battle of Pease River
The Battle of Pease River occurred on December 18, 1860, near the town of Margaret, Texas in Foard County, Texas, United States. The town is located between Crowell and Vernon within sight of the Medicine Mounds just outside present-day Quanah, Texas...
, Peta Nocona's wife and children were captured and his band scattered on December 18, 1860 in a battle with Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross was the 19th Governor of Texas , a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War, and a president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now called Texas A&M University.Ross was raised in the Republic of Texas, which was later annexed to...
and his Texas Rangers
Texas Ranger Division
The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
and Militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
at the Battle of Pease River
Battle of Pease River
The Battle of Pease River occurred on December 18, 1860, near the town of Margaret, Texas in Foard County, Texas, United States. The town is located between Crowell and Vernon within sight of the Medicine Mounds just outside present-day Quanah, Texas...
.
Death of Peta Nocona
While Peta Nocona's death is a matter of dispute, the destruction of his band, the Noconis is not. In early 1860 Peta Nacona led the Comanches in a raid through Parker County, TexasParker County, Texas
As of the census of 2003, there were 98,495 people, 31,131 households, and 24,313 families residing in the county. The population density was 98 people per square mile . There were 34,084 housing units at an average density of 38 per square mile...
, which ironically was named in honor of his wife's family. After the raid he returned with his band to what he believed was a safe retreat under the sandstone bluffs of Pease River
Pease River
The Pease River is river in Texas in the United States; it is a tributary of the Red River that runs in an easterly direction through West Texas . It was discovered and mapped for the first time in 1856 by Jacob de Córdova, who found the river while surveying for the Galveston, Houston and...
near where Mule Creek flowed into the stream. The site was long a favorite of the Comanche, providing both cover from the fierce blue northers that hit the plains, and ample forage for their ponies, with buffalo
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
hunting easy from the nearby herds. But the raids of the Comanche had brought pressure in Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
to protect the settlers, and Texas Governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
Sam Houston
Sam Houston
Samuel Houston, known as Sam Houston , was a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of...
had commissioned Ranger Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross was the 19th Governor of Texas , a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War, and a president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now called Texas A&M University.Ross was raised in the Republic of Texas, which was later annexed to...
to organize a company of 40 Rangers and 20 militia to put a stop to the Indian raids. The company of 60 was based at Fort Belknap, in Parker County.http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/Who-Killed-Chief-Peta-Nocona.htm
Ross quickly ascertained that he simply did not have sufficient men to guard the frontier, and instead determined that the best way to protect the settlers was to take the offensive to the Indians. To this end, he began to scout the area for sign of Indian camps, determined to take the fight to them at the earliest opportunity. After Peta Nocona's raid into Parker County Ross and his fighters started tracking the Nokonis, who were considered the hardiest fighters among the Comanche, who were in turn considered the fiercest of the Plains Indians. Ironically, modern research has revealed that Peta Nocona did not intend to stay at Pease River, and was preparing to move on when the attack came on his camp that December day.
It was daybreak on December 18, 1860, when Ranger Captain Ross himself scouted out the camp on the Pease River as his scouts reported the presence of a fairly large hunting party and camp on the banks of the Pease. With an oncoming blue norther blotting out sign, Ross was able to move up to literally spy out the location of the Noconas on the Mule Creek head bank as it came into the Pease River.
Ross sent a detachment of 20 men out of his force of 60 to position themselves behind a chain of sand hills to cut off retreat to the northwest, while with 40 men, Ross himself led the charge down into the Indian camp. The result was that the band was taken completely by surprise, and were massacred, either shot down where they stood, or were killed by the 20 men to the north as they attempted to flee. Though excuses were made for doing so, men, women, and children were shot indiscriminately. Indeed, Sul Ross himself wrote, quoted in Indian Depredations, by J.W. Wilbarger, that they fired at everyone present, saying "The attack was so sudden that a considerable number were killed before they could prepare for defense. They fled precipitately right into the presence of the sergeant and his men. Here they met with a warm reception, and finding themselves completely encompassed, every one fled his own way, and was hotly pursued and hard pressed."
There are two distinct and very different stories about Peta Nocona’s death. The first is that he died trying to escape with his wife and infant daughter, which is the generally believed story, and the one reported by Sul Ross officially. According to this story, seeing that the camp was hopelessly overrun, Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker fled to the east up a creek bed. Reportedly, mounted behind Nocona was a 15-year old Mexican girl, while Cynthia Ann Parker carried her two year old child, Topasannah (“Prairie Flower”). Captain Ross and his lieutenant, Tom Killiheir, pursued the man they believed to be the legendary Peta Nocona. But Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
, the chief's oldest son, once reportedly said in Dallas to Sul Ross, "No kill my father; he not there. I want to get it straight here in Texas history. After that, two year, three year maybe, my father sick. I see him die." http://www.co.wilbarger.tx.us/BattleofPeaseRiver.htm Certainly Quanah Parker said on numerous occasions to both friend and foe that his father had survived the massacre of his Band, and died 3–4 years later of complications from old war wounds suffered against the Apaches. In this story, strongly supported by the Comanche people, Peta Nocona was out hunting with his oldest son and a few others when the attack occurred.
Strongly supporting Quanah Parker's story that his father did not die at Pease River is the fact that Quanah was introduced into the Comanche Destanyuka band, where Chief Wild Horse took him under his wing, only after his father's death, several years after Pease River. Until Nocona died, he took care of his son. Indeed, it was not until Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped back into white society that Quanah knew his mother was white, and that he was of mixed blood. His father had not told him of his white ancestry until his mother was taken from them. According to Quanah Parker and his warriors Peta Nocona was a broken and bitter man after Pease River. He was never the same after his wife was taken from him, and died somewhere around 1863-4 of complications of old war wounds fighting the Apaches, and from sorrow at the loss of his wife and infant daughter.
It must be also noted that a rare book from that period supports Quanah's claim that his father did not die at Pease River. In a book decades out of print, written in 1890, Carbine & Lance, The Story of Old Fort Sill, by Colonel W.S. Nye, the Colonel buttresses Quanah's version of the story. Ney says: "Accounts vary as to what happened. Captain Ross, who was acclaimed a hero for the deed, claimed and probably honestly believed that he had caught and killed Peta Nacona. But in the melee he pursued and shot Nawkohnee's Mexican slave, who was trying to save the fleeing Comanche women." Nye claimed that he encountered men who saw Nocona alive several years after Pease River, when he was ill with an infected war wound. This version strongly supports Quanah's claim that his father survived Pease River, and died 3–4 years later, technically of an infected wound, but more, Quanah said, from a broken heart at losing his family. Nye said what Quanah maintained, that Nocona and Parker had been an exceptionally happy couple, and the forced separation killed them both, Parker starved herself to death, and Nocona withered away.
External links
- Biography of Cynthia Ann Parker - Roots.web *Cynthia Ann Parker - from Handbook of Texas online
- Account of the 1836 attack Parker's Fort from Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas by John Henry Brown published 1880, hosted by The Portal to Texas History
- Cynthia Ann Parker - Comanche (By Adoption)
- Ride the Wind, a novel of Cynthia Ann Parker by Lucia St. Clair Robson
- The Battle of Pease River