Too Many Wives? Quanah Parker’s Dilemma

This is one of my favorite stories on Quanah Parker. You have to understand Native American women to understand his dilemma. (We’re strong women, you know!) He said, “YOU TELL UM!” …Wise man! Ha.

(Page 246)…. In 1892, when the Comanches and Kiowas agreed to accept allotments, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs approached Quanah in regard to the number of wives he would be allowed to keep. Their conversation was substantially as follows: “Quanah, you have agreed to take allotments and sell your surplus lands and let them be settled by white people. When the white people come to be your neighbors it will be the white man’s law and the white man’s law says one wife. You have too many wives. You will have to decide which one you want to keep and tell the rest of them to go somewhere else to live.” Quanah listened attentively and looked at the commissioner with a very fixed gaze for some moments, and then startled that worthy by saying, “You tell um!” Then he waited several moments until the significance of this had dawned on the commissioner’s mind, when he added: “You tell me which wife I love most—you tell me which wife love me most—you tell me which wife cry most when I send her ’way—then I pick um.” The commissioner replied, “Oh, let’s talk about something else.” (….smart move…)

The significance of this was that the chief loved his wives all alike, but if the Government would tell him which one he would be happiest with he would abide by the decision. This responsibility the Government, through the Indian Department, never assumed, but after statehood, when Quanah wanted to take another woman (to whom he had taken a fancy) for a wife, the Indian agent at Anadarko warned him not to take any more. In time Parker quarreled with one wife and then another and (Page 247) “threw them away,” to use the Indian phrase for divorce, until at the time of his death he had but two left.

Link for article:

Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 1, No. 3, June, 1923

Comanche Civilization With History of Quanah Parker.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v001/v001p243.html

Can’t blame the women. Quanah was a fierce warrior, never losing a battle to a white man, was easy on the eyes, a smart, forward-thinking man, powerful, wealthy…

and a great Chief of the Comanches.

American Indian Chief, Quanah Parker

Quanah Parker became chief of the Comanche Indians in 1867

and until 1875 led raids on frontier settlements.

A shrewd businessman, he was believed, at one time,

to be the wealthiest Indian in the United States.

More Links on the Great Chief Quanah Parker:

http://www.nativeamericans.com/QuanahParker.htm

http://www.comancheindian.com/

http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/historic-images-quanah-parker-last-chief-of-the-comanches/