Book description
In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly
vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche
Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering
on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. 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.
Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and
Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches
that determined just how and when the American West opened up.
Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche
braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so
masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that
they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and
halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers
arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to
find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the
invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that
they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the
advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the
six-gun. Gwynne's exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative
that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction
of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads. Against this
backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a
nine-year-old girl who was kidnapped by Comanches in 1836. She grew to
love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw"
who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in
1860. 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. S. C. Gwynne's account of these events is meticulously
researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told.
