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

“No tribe in the history of Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had even caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.”

The book begins with a narration of the final campaign led by General Mackenzie against the Comanches, and the author firmly states that of all the Indigenous American tribes (such as the Kiowa, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux that lived in the area of the Great Plains), the Comanche were the strongest, most violent, and warlike of them all. This sentence serves as the thesis statement for the argument that the Comanche were the most powerful Indigenous tribe in American history.

“In one sense, the Parkers are the beginning and end of the Comanches in U.S. history.”

The author uses bold statements designed to grab the reader’s attention when narrating the history of the Comanches, Texans, and anyone dealing with the region. However, aside from its stylistic attributes, the sentence is designed to introduce the importance of Quanah Parker as the central and pivotal personality in the history of the Great Plains and of the Comanches.

“The horse and the knowledge of how to use it spread with astonishing speed through the midcontinent. In 1630, no tribes anywhere were mounted. By 1700, all Texas plains tribes had them; by 1750, tribes of the Canadian plains were hunting buffalo on horseback.”

The horse is what made the Comanche who they were. Without the spread and trade of horses from the Spanish, it’s quite possible that the group of Shoshone who broke off and became the Comanche never would have done so, and had they done so without the horse, they most likely could not have become as dominant as they did.