Captivity Narrative: Rachel Parker Plummer, 1818-1839
Captivity narratives detailing the treatment/mistreatment of Settlers by Natives after capture, their eventual survival and return to White society, had been a popular genre of American literature since the first such written by Puritan preacher's wife Mary Rowlandson in the 17th century. While early narratives tended to focus on the captive's faith in God, and God's protection of them throughout their ordeal, later narratives tended to play up the alleged brutalities of the Natives and the sheer grit and survival of the captive. The narrative of Rachel Parker Plummer, captured by the Commanche in Texas, is one such example.
Rachel was born in Crawford County, Illinois, the daughter of James W. Parker. James and his wife had five children. Rachel and two others survived to adulthood. They were part of a large network of families that included Rachel's much young cousin, Cynthia Ann Parker. While still in Illinois, at the age of 14, Rachel married Luther Plummer and the couple followed her father and uncles to Arkansas, as they waited for land grants in Texas. James Parker proposed to Stephen Austin that he be given acreage within the Comancheria. Probably knowing how dangerous it was to challenge the Comanches on their own land, Austin didn't reply and Parker went over his head to the Mexican government. Parker and his son-in-law Plummer received their own land grants near what is Groesbeck in 1834 and began building Fort Parker near the Navasota River. Like other frontier forts, it was a series of cabins joined by a palisade with a blockhouse. The Comanches were quick to take notice and moved to deal with the threat by any means necessary. While subsequent movies and novels play up Comanche cruelty, no one remembers that this was Comanche territory, everyone knew it, everyone knew how fiercely they dealt with trespassers, and any Settler they caught was theirs to punish as they saw fit.
On May 19, 1836, the men went out of the fort to work the fields as usual. Rachel, with a two-year-old toddler and pregnant with her second child, stayed closer to the fort walls. As the morning wore on, she recalled that, one moment, the fields were clear. The next, they were full of more Indians than she dreamed were possible. The Comanches quickly swarmed the men and killed them. Rachel, her son in her arms, tried to run for the fort gates. Too late, a warrior scooped her up and put her behind him on a horse. Her son was taken by another warrior. Still another grabbed Cynthia Ann, who was about 8 years old at the time. According to Rachel, she saw her grandfather murdered and her grandmother raped, though she doesn't explicitly use the term. Native on Settler rape was rare on the frontier. Rachel also told that she herself was later raped, expressing that whoever had said a good woman dies before being violated had never been dragged naked behind a horse for a day or two. She then closes over the incident by saying, "to undertake to narrate their barbarous treatment would only add to my present distress, for it is with feelings of the deepest mortification that I think of it, much les to speak or write of it."
Rather than cower within herself, though, Rachel kept her eyes and ears open, aware that her father and the surviving men of her family would be attempting a rescue. She never saw her two-year-old again. When her baby was born, he was taken from her and thrown on the ground. She revived the child, who was later killed. Rachel was assigned to two Comanche women who worked her until she was exhausted and beat her frequently. One day, she'd had enough and attacked the younger woman. Months of grief and pent up rage poured out of her as she beat the woman to the ground. She feared that she would be killed, but to her surprise, none of the warriors standing around came to the woman's aid. The older woman tried to attack Rachel, who took her on, too. After the fight was over, though, instead of killing either woman, she took the older one into a nearby lodge and helped her treat her wounds. Thus, a month before her ransom, she discovered the key that clicked in Comanche society, courage. A village leader told her, "You were brave to fight and good to a fallen enemy. You are directed by the Great Spirit."
Blessed or not, she still had to face the village council, who deemed that she should repair the damage done to a lodge during the tussle. Realizing that she had a new-found status in the tribe, Rachel spoke to the council as best she could. She hadn't started the fight, and the two women had helped her finish it. All three should share in cleaning the mess. The men agreed and ordered all three women to clean up the lodge. The incident conflicted Rachel. While she relished a respite from her captors' treatment of her, she wished she had discovered her courage earlier, wondering if it wouldn't have saved her baby, and perhaps led to finding the whereabouts of her older son. James Parker, meanwhile, was petitioning American and Mexican authorities and arranging both a monetary ransom and a military rescue if that failed. The band of Comanche she was with had drifted to near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Enter the Comancheros, who bargained for her release and turned her over to an American couple in Santa Fe.
Rachel was free, but a physical and mental wreck. Gaunt, scarred, and frightened, she fled with her hosts to Independence, Missouri, in the wake of a potential Native uprising in what is now New Mexico. In Independence, she was finally united with her brother-in-law, who escorted her home to Texas, right into family drama of the worst kind. James Parker and Luther Plummer had fallen out. Luther blamed James for putting the family in mortal danger by defying the Comanches, James thought Luther hadn't done enough to defend his family, find ransom money and work toward Rachel's release. Rachel returned to her husband and had another child, another baby boy. While waiting for him to be born, she composed her narrative of her 21 months with the Comanches, detailing much about their way of life. She died soon after the baby was born, the official cause being the after-effects of childbirth. While James Parker believed that the treatment of the Comanches had eventually killed her, most likely it was the accumulated stress of everything, as well as childbirth, that ended Rachel's life at 20. She was a prematurely aged woman, her red hair gone completely grey.
Her oldest son was recovered in 1842, and James Parker swooped in to take custody of the child. He adamantly refused to turn his grandson over to Luther Plummer, still angry and blaming Luther for not doing enough to save Rachel and her unborn baby. Though Sam Houston intervened in Plummer's behalf, James Parker defied him, too, and kept the child away. James Pratt Plummer never saw his father or baby brother again. He edited and published his daughter's memoir, Rachel Plummer's Narrative of Twenty-One Months' Servitude as a Prisoner Among the Comanche Indians, published in 1838, months before Rachel's death. Parker added supplementary material in his own autobiography, Narrative of the Perilous Adventures, Miraculous Escapes, and Sufferings of Rev. James W. Parker, published in 1844. Rachel's narrative was the first captivity narrative out of Texas and became a sensation in the United States. It was later used as propaganda and justification of the removal of the Comanche from their homeland and onto reservations.
Rachel was born in Crawford County, Illinois, the daughter of James W. Parker. James and his wife had five children. Rachel and two others survived to adulthood. They were part of a large network of families that included Rachel's much young cousin, Cynthia Ann Parker. While still in Illinois, at the age of 14, Rachel married Luther Plummer and the couple followed her father and uncles to Arkansas, as they waited for land grants in Texas. James Parker proposed to Stephen Austin that he be given acreage within the Comancheria. Probably knowing how dangerous it was to challenge the Comanches on their own land, Austin didn't reply and Parker went over his head to the Mexican government. Parker and his son-in-law Plummer received their own land grants near what is Groesbeck in 1834 and began building Fort Parker near the Navasota River. Like other frontier forts, it was a series of cabins joined by a palisade with a blockhouse. The Comanches were quick to take notice and moved to deal with the threat by any means necessary. While subsequent movies and novels play up Comanche cruelty, no one remembers that this was Comanche territory, everyone knew it, everyone knew how fiercely they dealt with trespassers, and any Settler they caught was theirs to punish as they saw fit.
On May 19, 1836, the men went out of the fort to work the fields as usual. Rachel, with a two-year-old toddler and pregnant with her second child, stayed closer to the fort walls. As the morning wore on, she recalled that, one moment, the fields were clear. The next, they were full of more Indians than she dreamed were possible. The Comanches quickly swarmed the men and killed them. Rachel, her son in her arms, tried to run for the fort gates. Too late, a warrior scooped her up and put her behind him on a horse. Her son was taken by another warrior. Still another grabbed Cynthia Ann, who was about 8 years old at the time. According to Rachel, she saw her grandfather murdered and her grandmother raped, though she doesn't explicitly use the term. Native on Settler rape was rare on the frontier. Rachel also told that she herself was later raped, expressing that whoever had said a good woman dies before being violated had never been dragged naked behind a horse for a day or two. She then closes over the incident by saying, "to undertake to narrate their barbarous treatment would only add to my present distress, for it is with feelings of the deepest mortification that I think of it, much les to speak or write of it."
Rather than cower within herself, though, Rachel kept her eyes and ears open, aware that her father and the surviving men of her family would be attempting a rescue. She never saw her two-year-old again. When her baby was born, he was taken from her and thrown on the ground. She revived the child, who was later killed. Rachel was assigned to two Comanche women who worked her until she was exhausted and beat her frequently. One day, she'd had enough and attacked the younger woman. Months of grief and pent up rage poured out of her as she beat the woman to the ground. She feared that she would be killed, but to her surprise, none of the warriors standing around came to the woman's aid. The older woman tried to attack Rachel, who took her on, too. After the fight was over, though, instead of killing either woman, she took the older one into a nearby lodge and helped her treat her wounds. Thus, a month before her ransom, she discovered the key that clicked in Comanche society, courage. A village leader told her, "You were brave to fight and good to a fallen enemy. You are directed by the Great Spirit."
Blessed or not, she still had to face the village council, who deemed that she should repair the damage done to a lodge during the tussle. Realizing that she had a new-found status in the tribe, Rachel spoke to the council as best she could. She hadn't started the fight, and the two women had helped her finish it. All three should share in cleaning the mess. The men agreed and ordered all three women to clean up the lodge. The incident conflicted Rachel. While she relished a respite from her captors' treatment of her, she wished she had discovered her courage earlier, wondering if it wouldn't have saved her baby, and perhaps led to finding the whereabouts of her older son. James Parker, meanwhile, was petitioning American and Mexican authorities and arranging both a monetary ransom and a military rescue if that failed. The band of Comanche she was with had drifted to near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Enter the Comancheros, who bargained for her release and turned her over to an American couple in Santa Fe.
Rachel was free, but a physical and mental wreck. Gaunt, scarred, and frightened, she fled with her hosts to Independence, Missouri, in the wake of a potential Native uprising in what is now New Mexico. In Independence, she was finally united with her brother-in-law, who escorted her home to Texas, right into family drama of the worst kind. James Parker and Luther Plummer had fallen out. Luther blamed James for putting the family in mortal danger by defying the Comanches, James thought Luther hadn't done enough to defend his family, find ransom money and work toward Rachel's release. Rachel returned to her husband and had another child, another baby boy. While waiting for him to be born, she composed her narrative of her 21 months with the Comanches, detailing much about their way of life. She died soon after the baby was born, the official cause being the after-effects of childbirth. While James Parker believed that the treatment of the Comanches had eventually killed her, most likely it was the accumulated stress of everything, as well as childbirth, that ended Rachel's life at 20. She was a prematurely aged woman, her red hair gone completely grey.
Her oldest son was recovered in 1842, and James Parker swooped in to take custody of the child. He adamantly refused to turn his grandson over to Luther Plummer, still angry and blaming Luther for not doing enough to save Rachel and her unborn baby. Though Sam Houston intervened in Plummer's behalf, James Parker defied him, too, and kept the child away. James Pratt Plummer never saw his father or baby brother again. He edited and published his daughter's memoir, Rachel Plummer's Narrative of Twenty-One Months' Servitude as a Prisoner Among the Comanche Indians, published in 1838, months before Rachel's death. Parker added supplementary material in his own autobiography, Narrative of the Perilous Adventures, Miraculous Escapes, and Sufferings of Rev. James W. Parker, published in 1844. Rachel's narrative was the first captivity narrative out of Texas and became a sensation in the United States. It was later used as propaganda and justification of the removal of the Comanche from their homeland and onto reservations.
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