Conflicting accounts surround death of Comanche chief

Part Two

In the chaos of a sudden frontier attack along the Pease River, Comanche warriors scrambled for their horses as Texas Rangers pressed hard into the encampment. Women fled in panic, but the element of surprise left little opportunity for organized resistance.

According to Lawrence “Sul” Ross, later governor of Texas, his attention was drawn to two riders mounted on a single horse: a large warrior in front and another figure behind. Ross closed the distance and fired his revolver. His second shot struck the front rider, whom Ross later identified as Chief Peta Nocona.

As Ross rode past the horse, he realized the remaining rider was a young woman, gravely wounded and bleeding from the chest. He allowed her to escape and turned back toward the fallen warrior.

Ross later described Nocona as the largest Native American he had ever encountered. Despite being wounded, the chief fought fiercely, releasing arrows with remarkable speed. One arrow pierced the base of Ross’s horse’s tail, causing the animal to buck violently. Nocona advanced, attempting to seize the bridle as Ross struggled to steady his aim.

A shot shattered Nocona’s arm below the elbow, but the chief knelt and continued fighting, bracing his bow against his knee. Ross emptied his revolver and briefly withdrew to reload. By then, Nocona was badly weakened, slumping and vomiting from his wounds.

At that moment, Ross’s Mexican servant, Antonio Martinez, arrived on a mule carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Martinez, who had been captured as a child by the Comanche and spoke their language fluently, recognized Nocona as the raider who had killed his family and burned their home. He begged Ross for permission to take revenge.

Martinez spoke briefly to the wounded chief in Comanche, then fired both barrels at close range into Nocona’s chest. The warrior fell dead.

After the fighting ended, Ross’s men regrouped. Some carried scalps, others guarded prisoners. Among the captives was a woman riding a pony with a baby in her arms, led in by Ranger Tom Killiheir. Ross immediately noticed her blue eyes and declared she was white.

She was Cynthia Ann Parker, 33, who had lived among the Comanche for 24 years after being captured as a child. That night, she recalled her given name and wept not for herself, but for her two young sons who had escaped during the attack. One of them was Quanah Parker, then about 15, who would evade capture and later rise to become the last great leader of the Quahadi Comanches.

Cynthia Ann was returned to her white relatives, first to her uncle, Isaac Parker, and later to her brother in Fannin County. She never adapted to life outside the tribe, mourning the loss of her Comanche family and culture. She and her daughter, Topsana, died around 1870, some accounts attributing their deaths to illness, others to grief and starvation.

Nocona’s regalia was taken to the Texas Capitol in Austin, where it was later destroyed in a fire. The stolen horses were recovered, and survivors of the raid, including captured Comanche, identified the dead warrior as Chief Peta Nocona, one of the most formidable leaders of the Plains.

For many Texans, the Pease River fight became a heroic victory. For the Comanche, it was a massacre, the destruction of a small camp largely made up of women, children and noncombatants.

Quanah Parker consistently disputed Ross’s account. In letters and interviews, he maintained that his father was not present at Pease River but was hunting miles away with Quanah and his brother, Pecos. According to Quanah, Nocona later died peacefully between 1863 and 1865 near the Antelope Hills in present-day Oklahoma, weakened by infected wounds and grief over Cynthia Ann’s capture.

Modern historians, examining inconsistencies in Ross’s changing versions of events and weighing Comanche oral histories, often find Quanah’s account more credible. Some suggest the warrior killed at Pease River may have been a woman or a lesser fighter, and that Ross embellished the story for political advantage.

The Pease River saga endures as a stark symbol of the frontier’s brutality — a place where triumph for one side meant devastation for the other. Quanah Parker, who surrendered in 1875 and later navigated life on the reservation while preserving Comanche traditions, became a bridge between two worlds.

His insistence that his father met a quieter end challenges the version written by the victors and reminds historians that truth on the Plains was often as elusive as the wind-swept trails Peta Nocona once rode.