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Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

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Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History ~~ S.C. Gwynne Empire of the Summer Moon is, in other words, a marvelous combination of many genres. It is a captivity narrative, a multi-person biography, and a military history. Gwynne does all these things extremely well. He is a really good writer. This is one of those rare history books where the prose is actually worth mentioning, at least in a positive sense. The descriptions of battle leave you with the stink of gunpowder in your nose. There are certain points when Gwynne uses his prose in combination with his insights into the participants – especially the mirror-twinned lives of Cynthia Ann and Quanah, who were both forced to leave their settled existences and live in spheres not of their choosing – that Empire of the Summer Moon reaches extremely rare heights. At its best, this book is among the best. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend.

In the end I give this 2 stars, not because I thought it deserves 2 stars, per se, but because the wee bit of information that actually involved Quanah Parker was interesting and was the sole reason I wanted to read the book. But even those parts were a stretch. Quanah Parker was born in 1845. He was never named principal war chief by the Comanches although he did fight as a warrior at the battle of Adobe Walls along with Apaches. He surrendered in 1875 and was named Chief of the Apaches by the United States Government. He died in 1911.On the other hand, humanity at this stage of development did not understand the concept of yours and mine. Literally everything was shared. Because individuals didn’t have the responsibility for only providing for themselves, people lived a relatively carefree existence where life was celebrated. Gwynne confirms this aspect of Reed’s argument with evidence that the Comanches would routinely dance every evening. S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Indian" voices appear once in awhile, as if Gwynne suddenly remembered the part that comes after the colon in the book title. Most of this book is told in a very, very strongly white voice. Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped at age nine by a Comanche war band in 1836. Her family was killed. She was adopted by the tribe, ultimately marrying Comanche brave Peter Nocona. She gave birth to three children, including Quanah Parker, the last free Comanche Chief until his surrender. Cynthia died of influenza in 1871, after several unsuccessful attempts to return to her Indian family. Book Genre: American History, Biography, Historical, History, Native American History, Native Americans, Nonfiction, North American Hi…, War, Westerns

Sadly, Quanah died poor ~~ his holdings taken away by the government ~~ his generosity to his others bottomless. He fought tirelessly for his tribe's rights. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that there was any innocent party involved in this violent and horrific part of American history, and no one should. But this book is just one more reminder of how much attention the white experience has received. McCleary, J.A.; Sypherd, P.S.; Walkington, D.L. (1960). "Antibiotic Activity of an Extract Of Peyote [Lophophora williamsii (Lemaire) Coulter]". Economic Botany. 14 (3): 247–249. doi: 10.1007/bf02907956. S2CID 41659698. {{ cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link) Surprisingly enough, Quanah was able to adapt to reservation life. Still, he lived as only a Comanche would be allowed to, with eight wives and twenty-four children. As Gwynne writes, Quanah “existed . . . in the weird half-world of the reservation” (p. 302). What do you make of Quanah’s peaceful surrender and his “second life” on the reservation? Were you surprised by his ability to balance both his captivity and his role as an assertive Comanche leader? S. C. Gwynne has written a history of the Comanches that gives us a new picture of Native American history, as well as the history the United States and the world: Empire of the Summer Moon (Scribner, 2010). The problem with this book is not what it says, but what it neglects to say about this history. The history of the ComanchesQuanah Parker did adopt some European-American ways, but he always wore his hair long and in braids. [1] He also refused to follow U.S. marriage laws and had up to eight wives at one time. [1] Family reunion [ edit ] Comanche history and culture is the focus of this book. The subtitle of the book markets itself as a biography of Quanah Parker, but he doesn't show up until the final fourth of the book. There were two things that bothered me about the book. First, were the inaccuracies. I'm not as well read in the History of the American West as many people, but I was finding common mistakes, especially when he was talking about other tribes. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Tribe in American History, Scribner, 2010, ISBN 9781849018203. [7] He talks about the inherent racism that permeated the period and made it impossible for those around her to believe that a white woman would want to return to the savages unless that person was insane. The racism that in the mid-nineteenth century allowed newspapers to circulate a picture of her breast feeding her child---a photo that for the social norms of the period would have been seen as pornographic had society seen her a white woman. (He discusses how National Geographic publishing nude men and women for years because they were uncivilized---a phrase that he uses, but in context to the understanding of period.)

Then, just as I was feeling confident that the book was almost over and I could relax again, Gwynne went and started talking (briefly) about the Native American Church which Quanah influenced. So, okay, this could be interesting, I don't know a whole lot about it, so I woke up a bit. And then this happened: "[Quanah] had to fight to keep prosecutors away from his peyote cult."

Because horses were introduced into the Comanches when they were a relatively underdeveloped society, they, no doubt, engaged in practices that were completely new to their way of life. Gwynne gave no evidence that the Comanche men ever raped or abused Comanche women. Genocide against the Indians The scene toward the end of the book when Quanah and his fellow Comanche are allowed off the reservation for a buffalo hunt is heartbreaking. There are no buffalo to be found, and they are reduced, instead, to hunting cattle. This poignant failed attempt to recapture a vital piece of Comanche identity just a few years after surrender begs the following questions: Would the Comanche have been forced to give up their way of life even if they had not engaged in war? Would they eventually have been rendered obsolete because of their inability and unwillingness to adapt to the ever-modernizing world around them? Gwynne discusses many of the historical instances that intentionally or unintentionally paved a path that lead to one of the longest most brutal wars in American history. The nation was booming. In 1869 The Transcontinental Railroad was completed, linking the industrialized east with the developing west. Only one obstacle remained, the war- like Indian Tribes who inhabited the Great Plains.

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