Fort Parker Massacre
Cynthia Ann Parker was born to Silas M. Parker and Lucy Duty Parker in Crawford County, Illinois. There is considerable dispute about her age, as according to the 1870 census of Anderson County, Texas, she would have been born between June 2, 1824, and May 31, 1825. Because of the Americans war-fighting ability against the Indians, the Mexican government had originally encouraged Americans to establish frontier settlements to block the continuing raids of the Comanche deep into Mexico. Consequently, the Parker clan, which had long history of frontier settlement and fighting was encouraged to settle in Texas. When Cynthia was nine years old, her family and extended kin moved to Central Texas and built Fort Parker, a log fort, on the headwaters of the Navasota River in what is now Limestone County. Her Grandfather, Elder John Parker, the Patriarch of the family, had negotiated treaties with the local Indians who were subject to the Comanches, and historians conjecture that he believed those treaties would bind all Indians and that his family was safe from attack.
However, the customs of the Comanche regarding treaties made by their subjects tribes did not limit the Comanche to their reason de etre of being a raiding nation. Consequently, when the Comanche raiding season began, Fort Parker was one of the many settlements to be subject to Comanche raiding custom. Consequently, with substantial militia forces detailed toward guarding the Texans during the Great Scrape, all of the frontier settlements were woefully unprepared and undermanned for the invasion.
On May 19, 1836, a huge force of Comanche warriors approximately 500 strong, accompanied by Kiowa and Kichai allies who had also been promised by the Mexicans rich booty and hundreds of white females and slaves, attacked the fort in force, murdering most of the men. However, the Comanche ordered some of the children spared for slavery into the tribe. Thus, after the attack, the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann. Following the defeat of Mexico in the Texas War of Independence, the new government shifted its attention toward recovering the thousands of children and women captured during the invasion.
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