The Fate of the Captives Taken at Fort Parker
The majority of this information was found in a book entitled "The History of Limestone County Texas". This book contained narratives written by James Parker and Rachel Parker Plummer, as well as S.L. Ross, the man who found Cynthia Ann Parker, which I have used to construct the story of what I believe really happened. I welcome any comments or corrections to this page. Please.. let me hear your comments!
After leaving the fort, the two tribes that were involved in the raid, the Comanches and Kiowas, regrouped and traveled together until about midnight. They then halted on an open prairie and pitched their camp, bringing all their prisoners together for the first and the last time. The hands of the captives were tied behind them with rawhide thongs so tight that they cut the flesh. They also tied their feet close together and threw them upon their faces. Then the braves commenced a war dance, screaming, yelling, and stamping upon their prisoners, beating them with bows until their own blood came near strangling them. This continued for the remainder of the night and shortly after dawn, the captives were again separated and taken different ways. Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg soon fell into the hands of the Keechis, from whom six months after her capture she was purchased by a party of Delawares. The Delaware Indians carried her into Nacogdoches, and delivered her to General Houston, who paid them one hundred and fifty dollars, the same amount that they had paid to the Keechis for her and all they asked. I have been unable to find anything else about her.
Mrs. Rachel (Parker) Plummer remained a captive for about eighteen months. She was separated from her small son, James Pratt Plummer and never saw him again. She was also pregnant with her second child at the time she was taken captive. There was just simply no other way to describe her ordeal than to include extracts from her diary dated in July and a portion of August to tell her tale.
" We were among some very high mountains on which the snow remains for the greater portion of the year and I had suffered more than I had ever done before in my life. It was very seldom I had any covering for my feet and very little clothing for my body. I had a certain number of buffalo skins to dress every day and had to mind the horses at night. This kept me employed pretty much all the time and often I would take my buffalo skins with me to finish them while I was minding the horses. My feet would often be frost bitten while I was dressing the skins, but I dared not complain for fear of being punished.'
'In October, I gave birth to my second son. I say October but it was all guesswork with me, as I had no means of keeping a record of the days as they passed. It was a beautiful and healthy baby, but it was impossible for me to procure suitable comfort for myself and infant. The Indians were not as harsh in their treatment towards me as I feared they would be, but I was apprehensive for the safety of my child. I had been with them six months and had learned their language and I would often besearch my mistress to advise me what to do to save my child, but she turned a deaf ear to all my supplications. My child was about six months old when my master, thinking I suppose that it interfered too much with my work, determined to put it out of the way. One cold morning five or six indians came to where I was suckling my babe. As soon as they came I felt sick at heart, for my fears were aroused for the safety of my child. I felt my whole frame convulsed with sudden dread. My fears were not ill-grounded. One of the Indians caught my child by the throat and strangled it until to all appearances it was dead. I exerted all my feeble strength to save my child but the other Indians held me fast. The Indan who had strangled the child then threw it up in the air repeatedly and let it fall upon the frozen ground until life seemed to be extinct. They then gave it back to me. I had been weeping incessantly whilst they were murdering my child but now my grief was so great that the fountain of my tears was dried up, as I gazed upon the bruised cheeks of my darling infant. I discovered soon symptoms of returning life. I hoped that if it could be resuscitated they would allow me to keep it. I washed the blood from its face and after a time it began to breathe again but a more heart-rending scene soon ensued. As soon as the Indians ascertained that the child was still alive they tore it from my arms and knocked me down. They tied a plaited rope around its neck and threw it into a bunch of prickly pears and then pulled it backwards and forwards until its tender flesh was literally torn from its body. One of the Indians who was mounted on a horse then tied the end of the rope to his saddle and galloped around in a circle until my little innocent babe was not only dead but torn to pieces. One of them untied the rope and threw the remains of the child into my lap and I dug a hole in the earth and buried them." After this she was given as a servant to a cruel old squaw who treated her in a most brutal manner. Her son had been carried off by another tribe, she assumed her husband was dead, and her baby had been murdered before her eyes. To her, death would have been a relief. Driven almost to desperation she resolved no longer to submit to the intolerant old squaw. One day when the two were some distance from, although still in sight of the camp, her mistress attempted to beat her with a club. Determined not to submit to this she wrenched the club from the hands of the squaw and knocked her down. The indians who had witnessed the whole proceedings from the camp now came running up shouting at the top of their voices. She fully expected to be killed but they patted her on the should crying 'bueno-bueno' - good, good, or well done. She now fared much better and soon became a great favorite and was known as the fighting squaw. She was eventually ransomed through the agency of some Santa Fe traders by a noble hearted American merchant of that place, Mr. William Dunahue. She was purchased in the Rocky Mountains so far north of Santa Fe that seventeen days were consumed in reaching that place. She was at once made a member of her benefactors family where she recieved the kindest care and attention. Before long she accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Dunahue on a visit to Independence, Missouri, where she had the pleasure of meeting and embracing her brother in law, L.D. Nixon and by him was escorted back to her people in Texas.
On the 19th of February, 1838, she reached her father's house exactly twenty one months from her capture. As a remarkable coincidence, it might be pointed out that she was born on the 19th, released on the 19th, reached Independence on the 19th, and arrived at home on the 19th of the month.
As to the fate of Cynthia Ann Parker, it is best described by S.L. Ross' report of the fight with the Indians and the capture of Cynthia Ann on the 18th of December, 1860.
" While marching up Pease River I had suspicions that Indians were in the vicinity by reason of the buffalo that came running in great numbers from the north towards us, and while my command moved in the low ground, I visited all high points to make discoveries. Near one of the sand hills I found fresh pony tracks and being satisfied that Indians had gone I galloped forward about a mile to a higher point where to my surprise I found myself within 200 yards of a Comanche village located on a small stream winding around the base of a hill. It was a most happy circumstance that a piercing north wind was blowing, bearing with it a cloud of sand and my presence was unobserved, and the surprise complete. '
By signaling my men as I stood concealed, they reached me without being discovered by the Indians who were busy packing up, preparatory to a move. By the time they reached me, the Indians had mounted and moved off north across the level of the plain. The sergeant and about twenty men were sent at a gallop behind a chain of sand hills to encompass them and cut off their retreat, while with fifty men I charged. The attack was so sudden that a considerable number were killed before they could prepare for defense. They fled right into the presence of the sergeant and his men. Here they met with a warm reception and finding themselves completely incompassed, everyone fled and was hotly pursued and hard pressed. The chief of the party, Peta Nocona, a noted warrior of great repute, with a young girl about fifteen years old mounted on his horse behind him, and Cynthia Ann Parker, with a girl about two years of age in her arms, and mounted on a fleet pony, fled together, while Lieutenant Tom Kellikeir and I pursued them. After running about a mile Kellikeir ran up by the side of Cynthia's horse and I was in the act of shooting when she held up her child and stopped. I kept on after the Chief and about half a mile further I fired my pistol striking the girl (whom I supposed to be a man as she rode like one and only her head was visible about the buffalo robe with which she was wrapped) near the heart killing her instantly. The small ball would have killed both but for the shield of the Chief, which hung down covering his back. When the girl fell from the horse she pulled him off also, and before steadying himself, my horse, which was running at full speed and was very nearly on top of him, was struck with an arrow which caused it to fall, pitching and bucking. It was with great difficulty that I kept my saddle, and in the meantime, narrowly escaped several arrows coming in quick succession from the Chief's bow. Being at such disadvantage he would have killed me in a few minutes but for a random shot from my pistol while I was clinging with my left hand to the pommel of my saddle, which broke his right arm at the elbow, completely disabling him. My horse then became quiet and I shot the Chief twice through the body, whereupon he deliberately walked to a small tree, the only one in sight, and leaning against it, began to sing a wild and weird song.
At this time my Mexican servant, who had once been a captive with the Comanches and spoke their language as fluently as his mother tongue, came up in company with two of my men. I summoned the Chief to surrender but he treated every overture with contempt and signalized this declaration with a savage attempt to thrust me with his lance which he held in his left hand. I could only look upon him with pity and admiration, for deporable as was his situation with no chance of escape, his party utterly destroyed, his wife and child captured in his sight, he was undaunted by the fate that awaited him and as he seemed to prefer death to life, I directed the Mexican to end his misery. Taking up his accounterments, which I sent to Governor Houston to be deposited in the archives at Austin, we rode back to Cynthia Ann and Kellikeir and found him bitterly cursing himself for having run his pet horse so hard after an old squaw. She was very dirty, both in her scanty garments and person, but as soon as I looked on her face I said, " Why, Tom, this is a white woman. Indians do not have blue eyes." On the way to the village where my men were assembling with the spoils and a large group of Indian ponies, I discovered an Indian boy about nine years of age secreted in the grass, expecting to be killed. He began crying, but I made him mount behind me and carried him along, and when in after years I frequently proposed to send him to his people, he steadily refused to go and died in McLennan County. We camped for the night and Cynthia Ann kept crying. Thinking it was caused from fear of death at our hands, I had the Mexican tell her that we recognized her as one of our own people and would not harm her. She said two of her boys were with her when the fight began and she was distressed by the fear that they had been killed. It so happened, however, both escaped and one of them, Quanah Parker, later became chief of the tribe. The other one died two years later. I then asked her to give me the history of her life among the Indians and the circumstances attending her capture by them, which she promptly did in a very sensible manner, and as the facts detailed correspond with the massacre at Parker's Fort, I was impressed with the belief that she was Cynthia Ann Parker. Returning to my post, I sent her and her child to the ladies at Fort Cooper where she could receive the attention her situation demanded. At the same time I dispatched a messenger to Colonel Parker, her uncle, who lived near Weatherford, and as I was called to Waco to meet Governor Houston, I left directions for the Mexican to accompany Colonel Parker as interpreter when he reached there. Her identity was soon discovered to Colonel Parker's entire satisfaction and great happiness."
John Parker, younger brother of Cynthia Ann was not located until he was grown and when found, did not want to return to Texas. He grew to manhood among the Indians and while on a raiding party with them in Mexico fell in love with a Mexican girl named Dona Juanita. She accompanied him back to Texas and nursed him back to health after the Indians abandoned him on the Llano Estacado when he became sick with smallpox. Parker then refused to rejoin the Indians but went to Mexico and became a stockman and rancher. He served in a Mexican company in the Confederate Army during the Civil War but refused to cross the Sabine River. After the war he returned to his family in Mexico, where he lived until 1915. Nothing more is known about him or his family.
