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Empire of the Summer Moon
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Empire of the Summer Moon (2010) (edit title/settings)

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

by S. C. Gwynne (Author) (edit contributors)

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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... read more

Summary edit see section history

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... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

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. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. 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—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier 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. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.”
    Gwynne
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • Killing the Indians’ food was not just an accident of commerce; it was a deliberate political act.
    Highlighted by 89 Kindle customers
  • (So many raids were made by moonlight that in Texas a full, bright spring or summer moon is still known as a Comanche Moon.)
    Highlighted by 86 Kindle customers
  • But there was no ultimate good and evil: just actions and consequences; injuries and damages due.
    Highlighted by 82 Kindle customers
  • There were no horses at all on the continent until the Spanish introduced them in the sixteenth century.
    Highlighted by 71 Kindle customers
  • John Coffee Hays. He was called Jack. The Comanches, who feared him greatly, called him “Capitan Yack,”30 as did the Mexicans, who put a high price on his head. He was the über-Ranger,
    Highlighted by 58 Kindle customers
  • Quahadis were the hardest, fiercest, least yielding component of a tribe that had long had the reputation as the most violent and warlike on the continent;
    Highlighted by 55 Kindle customers
  • James’s story begins to sound familiar, it was the basis for John Ford’s magnificent western The Searchers starring John Wayne in the James Parker role and Natalie Wood as his niece, the screen version of Cynthia Ann.)
    Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers
  • In 1630, no tribes anywhere were mounted.25 By 1700, all Texas plains tribes had them; by 1750, tribes of the Canadian plains were hunting buffalo on horseback.
    Highlighted by 52 Kindle customers
  • Abandoned by the Spanish, thousands of mustangs ran wild into the open plains that resembled so closely their ancestral Iberian lands. Because they were so perfectly adapted to the new land, they thrived and multiplied. They became the foundation stock for the great wild mustang herds of the Southwest. This event has become known as the Great Horse Dispersal.
    Highlighted by 52 Kindle customers
  • The agent of this astonishing change was the horse. Or, more precisely, what this backward tribe of Stone Age hunters did with the horse, an astonishing piece of transformative technology that had as much of an effect on the Great Plains as steam and electricity had on the rest of civilization.18
    Highlighted by 50 Kindle customers
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First Sentence edit see section history

Cavalrymen remember such moments: dust swirling behind the pack mules, regimental bugles shattering the air, horses snorting and riders' tack creaking through the ranks, their old company song rising on the wind: "Come home, John! Don't stay long.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. New Kind of War
2. A Lethal Paradise
3. Worlds in Collision
4. High Lonesome
5. The Wolf's Howl
6. Blood and Smoke
7. Dream Visions and Apocalypse
8. White Squaw
9. Chasing the Wind
10. Death's Innocent Face
11. War to the Knife
12. White Queen of the Comanches
13. The Rise of Quanah
14. Uncivil Wars
15. Peace, and Other Horrors
16. The Anti-Custer
17. Mackenzie Unbound
18. The Hide Men and the Messiah
19. The Red River War
20. Forward, in Defeat
21. This Was a Man
22. Resting Here Until Day Breaks

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in True Crime: Genocide. (community list)
This book is in New York Times Bestsellers (Current). (authoritative list)
This book is in Rainy Day Books (Staff Picks for 2010). (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. S. C. Gwynne (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Scribner
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 9781416591054
Page Count: 371

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: E99.C85 P3835 2010
  • Dewey: 978.004974572

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

violence and sex

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
  • Trail of Tears
  • The Last Comanche Chief
  • Where the Broken Heart Still Beats
  • The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II
  • Comanche Society
  • The Captured
  • Three Years Among the Comanches: The Narrative of Nelson Lee, the Texas Ranger (Western Frontier Library)
  • Frontier Blood
  • Quanah Parker
  • Ride the Wind

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • Outdoor Pastimes Of An American Hunter

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