Cynthia Ann Parker

Cynthia Ann Parker was captured as a child during the 1836 attack on Fort Parker and was raised among the Comanche. She married the war leader Peta Nocona and became the mother of Quanah Parker. Texas Rangers recaptured her in 1860 and returned her to relatives, but she was separated from her Comanche family and never readapted happily to settler society.

Lucia St. Clair Robson’s Ride the Wind tells Cynthia Ann Parker’s story primarily through her life among the Comanche, challenging older accounts that treated her years there only as captivity. Her history also appears in non-fiction about Quanah Parker and the Comanche empire. Any portrayal must distinguish the documented outline of her life from later frontier legend, particularly claims about rescue, assimilation and Peta Nocona’s death.