![]() When the Pueblo tribe in New Mexico rebelled in 1680, the fleeing Spaniards abandoned their steeds. In the sixteenth century, the first conquistadors in Mexico had brought horses from Spain. The Comanche had a four-legged creature to thank for this transformation. “In exchange for meaningless promises of allegiance to Mexico (of which Texas was still a part) several Parker family heads were each given grants of 4600 acres.” This was prime real estate-heavily timbered, with meadowlands, springs, creeks, and plenty of fish and fowl. “The deal they were offered seemed almost too good to be true,” writes Gwynne. The saga begins in 1833 when 30 oxcarts carried "an extended family of religious, enterprising transplanted easterners known to their neighbors as the Parker Clan” from Illinois to Texas. In Quanah Parker, Gwynne has found the perfect vehicle for telling that story. But while this is a non-fiction book about war, it is equally a book about two nations trying to control their destinies by whatever means necessary. ![]() Gwynne, the former executive editor of Texas Monthly, details the atrocities perpetrated by each side in living color to do otherwise would be dishonest. ![]() In truth, the forty-year battle between the Comanche and the white man for control of the Great Plains and Texas was not so antiseptic. ![]()
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