Captured was their mother Nautdah, a white woman who, 24 years earlier, at the age of nine, when she was known as Cynthia Ann Parker, had been abducted by Indians. Killed in that raid was the Comanche chief Peta Nocona, the boys’ father. This is when Gwynne describes what happened to a 12-year-old Parker and his younger brother Peanuts after they escaped in 1860 from a raid on a small Comanche camp in northern Texas by a force of U.S. Except for a few passing references, he doesn’t take up Parker’s story until two-thirds of the way into “Empire of the Summer Moon.” For the first 193 pages, Gwynne writes about the struggles between white settlers and nomad Indians, particularly Comanches, for control of the Great Plains in and around Texas. One is of his mother, and three others are related directly to him.Įven the text on the dust jacket describes the book with these words: “In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.” In the eight-page photo section halfway through the book, Quanah Parker is the central figure. And, from what I can tell, it’s not a term that’s ever been used anywhere else to refer to the Comanche power at its height. (By the way, here’s another odd thing about the title itself: Nowhere in the book does Gwynne or anyone he quotes refer to the Comanche dominance on the Plains as the Empire of the Summer Moon. And, of course, it’s further emphasized by being the start of the subtitle.

“Quanah Parker” is the only boldface word that is not all caps, but, in a way, that gives more emphasis to the name. That subtitle, by the way, is strange, with its odd mix of some, but not all, words in boldface and some, but not all, of those boldface words in all capital letters. Gwynne’s 2010 book “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the RISE and FALL of the COMANCHES, the Most POWERFUL INDIAN Tribe in American History,” appears to be a biography of Quanah Parker.įor one thing, an image of Parker takes up more than half of the book cover, the part not covered by the title and the subtitle. Let’s talk about book titles, and book covers, and book marketing.įor all intents and purposes, S.C.

Empire of the summer moon by sc gwynne