All language subtitles for Kevin.Costners.The.West.S01E04.Comanchería.1080p.NOW.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

From the first days
that it became a nation,

the United States
has looked to expand its borders.

In the early 1800s,
American settlers move west

into territories gained
from the Louisiana Purchase,

creating the states of Louisiana,

Missouri, and Arkansas,

while forcing Native Nations
off their homelands.

But when they push into Texas
in the early 1830s,

they must confront a Native power
that's dominated the Southern Plains

for the last hundred years.

A nine-year-old girl,
Cynthia Ann Parker,

will find herself
at the centre of a battle

to control the heart
of the continent,

fought between three bitter rivals,

the US, Mexico, and the Comanche.

People live on myths.

And the myths that really stick
in the American experience

are the myths of the West.

The mountains were taller,
the deserts were harsher,

the snows were deeper.

American West conjures wonder,

possibility, opportunity.

The figure of the mountain man.

Notorious outlaws.

The cowboy.

The discovery of gold
in California.

This train of wagons
trailing across the prairie.

Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

But most of that land
was already occupied.

We have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

But this is a clash
of two different ways

of seeing life itself,

fighting for the future
of your homeland on the one side...

...and fighting for the destiny of
the new republic on the other side.

The history of the West
is a creation story.

It's the creation of what
we think of as modern America.

The West is a place
where anything is possible.

It is the essence
of the American dream.

The core of this,
is what are we to be as a nation?

The reckoning is coming.

The West is this canvas on which

American dreams
become larger than life.

Three decades after independence,

the United States has almost
doubled in both size and population.

The original 13 states now number 17

and are home
to five million Americans

and 600,000 Indigenous people.

Most of the land the United States
doesn't occupy in North America,

is claimed by Great Britain
or Spain.

But on the Southern Great Plains,

the 300-year-old
Spanish empire is struggling...

...against an unexpected
threat to its power.

Long before the Europeans
arrived in North America,

there have been Indians
living on the Plains.

And among those peoples
were the Comanches.

If you were to take
a snapshot of them in let's say,

the year 1600 or 1500,

they would've been a small tribe.

You would've described them
as nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Then sometime around 1625,

something happened to turn this very

sort of minor and somewhat
insignificant player on the Plains

into the single most powerful
force on the Plains.

That was the arrival of the horse.

With the Spanish, the horse arrives

in the late 16th century,

and the tribe that knows
what to do with it

more than anybody else
is the Comanches.

The horse is what enabled

for Comanches to be able to go

and to build up this thing

that now historians
are calling an empire.

With the help of the horse,

the Comanche become
master buffalo hunters.

Buffalo became even more essential

to the Comanche culture
and way of living

than it had been before
because they're not growing crops,

they're living off the buffalo.

Experts estimate
that there was as many as

30 million buffalo, huge herds.

You could stand still and it would
take hours for them to pass.

The buffalo were everything,

for sustenance, for shelter,

the teepees, the hides, clothing.

The buffalo is a life source.

Chasing down buffalo from horseback,

the Comanche learned to fire arrows

with deadly accuracy
at a full gallop;

a skill they bring to warfare

as they shield themselves
behind the neck of the horse.

Their abilities
to fight from horseback

were things that people
had never seen before.

They had been called the most

effective and formidable
light cavalry

in the history of human warfare.

And they became
the scourge of the plains.

They're blowing tribes off

of the Southern Plains
left and right.

They drove Navajos and Apaches
nearly to extinction.

The Comanche fiercely
protect their hunting grounds

from all potential threats,

above all, the Spanish.

They would raid settlements
and steal horses,

and raiding became a way of life.

The Comanches,
they're the most successful

expansionist power
on the Great Plains.

They're the ones who are the
most successful empire builders.

By the mid 1750s,

the Comanche have halted
Spanish expansion in its tracks.

With a population of 40,000,

their empire dominates
an area larger than France,

some 250,000 square miles

known as Comancheria.

This Comanche empire
doesn't look like European empires.

It doesn't have a central authority.

They were broken down into bands,

but it has its own policies,

its own economic strategies,

its own foreign policy,

as they work together
to dominate this area.

And if you were in Comancheria,

you were liable to be raided upon
and perhaps killed

by the Comanches
almost at any moment.

As its North American empire

is under assault
from Comanche raids,

Spanish power
in North America is in decline.

In 1821,
after an 11-year rebellion,

Mexico wins independence

along with all of Spain's
North American lands.

That includes the province of Tejas,

or Texas,

about 3/4 of which
is now in Comancheria.

To safeguard Texas
against Comanche raiding,

the new Mexican rulers
look to create a human shield,

with American settlers.

In the 1820s,
the Americans have been invited in.

And so Americans are moving
to a foreign country

because they're gonna get free land,
thousands of acres.

It's this incredibly fertile land,

and they come in by droves,

and they create a buffer
against the Comanches.

These Americans,
they've dealt with Cherokees

and Chickasaw Indians, so they think

they know what Indians are.
Eh, no big deal.

And so there's a land rush,

as there will later be gold rushes
in the American West.

Over the next 15 years,

more than 30,000 settlers
moved to Texas

looking for opportunity
and fertile land.

Among them, the Parker family.

The Parkers came to Texas because

they weren't particularly well off

and so they couldn't buy land
where land had gotten expensive.

They start in Virginia
and they migrate to Illinois,

and they end up in Texas in 1833.

Land is wealth,

and Mexico gave the Parker men

a 16,000-acre parcel
of nice rolling savanna

that's just beyond
your wildest dreams.

And they build Fort Parker

like a military compound

on the very edge
of Comanche country.

Arriving with 38 members
of the extended Parker family

is nine-year-old Cynthia Ann.

Cynthia Ann's
got three brothers and sisters

and her parents are
God-fearing Baptists.

They believe God has already willed
what is going to happen

and they make their life.

To the Indians, as long as
Americans are passing through,

they are useful trading partners.

But once Americans
start to settle in places...

...that's usually
when conflict ensues.

The Parkers
live out on the frontier,

so they're taking the risk.

Maybe you'll survive,
maybe you won't.

While the Comanche
are a threat to American settlers,

it's the Americans who are now
a threat to Mexico.

Mexico's outlawed slavery in 1829,

but many of the settlers
who were attracted to Mexico come

for the raising of cotton and other
slavery-dependent commodities,

and they bring
their slaves with them.

This is gonna create
a conflict between Mexico

and its invited guests
from the United States.

And by 1836, Americans in Texas

revolt in the name of
independence from Mexico.

After a bloody six-month war,

including the loss of some
200 Americans at the Alamo,

Texan forces led by Sam Houston

defeat Mexican troops
at San Jacinto.

Houston's rallying cry,
"Remember the Alamo,"

enflames his troops,
earning victory in just 18 minutes.

Texas declares independence
from Mexico on March 2nd, 1836,

and looks to join the United States.

Texas wants to come into the
Union, but the United States says,

no, you can't come in,

because Northerners don't wanna have
any more slave states.

So Texas becomes
this independent republic.

And so they fly this lone star flag.

There's no American federal power

because Texas has not
come in as a state.

And so these settlers

are out on the absolute
edge of the frontier

with no protection
of any kind around them.

So who is it that's going to be
getting hit by Comanche attacks?

It's going to be settlers.

If you're
a Comanche back in the 1830s,

and if suddenly a huge family,

20 people or so,
showing up in my backyard

and then they set up camp,

several months go by
and they're still there...

...what choice do you have?

On a bright May morning In 1836,

a group of Comanche,

led by a young chief
named Peta Nocona,

rides up to the Parker fort.

Comanches have come up
with a white flag.

Cynthia Ann's uncle Benjamin
goes out to talk with them.

They say they want water.

But Uncle Benjamin notes that
their horses are dripping wet,

having just come out of the spring,
so they can't really want water.

Suddenly, all hell breaks loose.

It's obviously a killing raid.

The Comanches stabbed
Cynthia Ann's uncle Benjamin...

...and scalp him while still alive.

What happens next is one of
the most significant events

in the history of the American West.

Now, the killing starts.

The fort itself was a very strong

defence in case
any enemy came at you,

but the Parkers have left
their gate open.

And that's a problem.

This quick scene of violence,

it's all about death.

Five members
of the Parker family are killed

and four are taken captive...

...including Cynthia Ann
and her cousin, Rachel Plummer.

This brutal raid marks the beginning

of one of the longest
and bloodiest conflicts

in American history,

the 40-year fight
against the Comanche.

Cynthia Ann Parker,
my great-great-great-grandmother

was, I believe,
nine when she was captured.

There's this perception
that the Comanche take captives

because they're interested
in ransoming them off,

but in reality,
the Comanche are also interested

in assimilating their captives.

This increases the strength
of the tribe itself.

The Parkers are just a few
of the hundreds of captives

taken by the Comanche
in the early 1800s.

Many never see their families again.

Comanches would capture the children

to be incorporated into the tribe

to become Comanche men,
Comanche women.

Her captors take Cynthia Ann

deep into Comanche-controlled land.

Her family tries to find her,

but she's beyond the reach
of American power.

Then after two years of searching,

they find her cousin Rachel Plummer
and buy her back.

Rachel is 21
when she was returned to her family

after two years of captivity.

The most telling detail about
what captivity must have been like

is that her striking red hair
had turned grey.

And she publishes
a memoir of her captivity.

"They commenced whipping
and beating me with clubs,

so that my flesh was never well
from bruises and wounds

during my captivity.

Often did the children cry...

...but were soon hushed by such blows

that I had no idea
they could survive."

Rachel Plummer's narrative
of her time in captivity

becomes a big, big bestseller.

It has elements of true crime,

elements of a world
that one can't possibly imagine.

Rachel's memoir
makes it clear to people

that there are extraordinary
dangers in the West.

And we're seeing a world
that is scary,

we're seeing a world
that is filled with violence.

And now, anybody who
didn't know about Cynthia Ann Parker

and the Parkers, knows it now.

By 1838,
Cynthia Ann has been missing

for over two years

and the story of her cousin
Rachel Plummer

prompts fear and outrage
across America.

Yet armed settlers from the US
continue pouring into lands

claimed by the new Texas Republic,

but controlled by the Comanche.

You can't really
overstate the amount of land

the Texans of this new republic
were giving out.

And once you surveyed it,
it was yours.

The Comanche
recognised that surveyors

are the advanced guard
of settlement.

And so surveyors
are killed left and right.

Then it became the most hazardous
profession in America.

As the Comanche raids continue

and more captives are taken,

the first president
of the Republic of Texas,

Sam Houston, promotes peace.

As a teenager, he spent three years
living with the Cherokee

and was sympathetic
toward Native Americans.

But Texans want war.

And in December of 1838,
they vote him out,

in favour of his vice president
who commanded the cavalry

during the Texas Revolution.

Mirabeau Lamar
became president of Texas in 1838

and it became very clear

that this was one of the meanest
people in the state of Texas,

and most of the meanness
was directed at Indians.

He has a famous phrase
that describes his policy

towards Indians.

"Expulsion or extinction."

As thousands of American settlers

claim land in the
Republic of Texas,

their aggressive policy
towards Native peoples,

"expulsion or extinction,"

is shared by the president of the
United States, Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson wanted to have
white settlers able to have

free access to land
in the Southern states.

By the Indian Removal Act of 1830,

tens of thousands
of Native Americans

are taken away from their lands

and forced to go west.

But in 1838,
the Comanches are still free

and attacking settlers
across the Southern Plains.

The new president
of the Texas Republic,

Mirabeau Lamar,
not only vows to get rid of them,

he promises to recover
all their captives.

And knows the perfect
men for the job:

the Texas Rangers.

The Texas Rangers
were famous for giving no quarter.

The Rangers began in 1823

as a force of 10 men

hired to protect American settlers

in what was then Mexican Texas.

They are volunteers
repaid for their bravery with land.

When Texas gains its independence,

the Rangers grow to 300 men,

and even more are needed.

Jack Hays, at 23 years old,

is just the type of recruit

that the Texas Rangers
are looking for.

He's a formidable Indian fighter.

He's very adept with a pistol.

The Rangers
are all under 30 and fearless,

but their firepower
is still no match for the Comanche.

They've only got three shots.

They've got the Kentucky long rifle.

One, and they've got
two single shot pistols.

Their second problem
is they're afoot,

against Indians who can discharge
arrows at this rate...

...mounted on fast horses.

Now who do you think
wins those fights?

But in the late 1830s,

the Comanche are facing a threat

that's deadlier than any weapon.

The arrival of European diseases

were catastrophic
for Native populations.

Smallpox kills 90 of the Indians

for every one of the whites.

In 1839,
the Comanches have been devastated

by a sweeping epidemic of smallpox.

It's reduced their
population almost by half.

And that's what compels
some of the Comanche

to attend the council house in Texas

with the Texas Rangers,
which is gonna be an attempt

to exchange dozens of captives
and achieve some measure of peace.

The Comanches bring only

one white captive
by the name of Matilda Lockhart.

The white soldiers are saying,

but we want all the captives.

And Chief Mukwooru he's saying,
it doesn't work that way.

The Texans will not accept
that a Comanche leader from one band

cannot speak for another.

As tensions rise,

the 12 Comanche leaders
who came to make peace

are provoked into a fight
and shot dead.

23 more Comanche
are killed in a street battle.

The news travels quickly,

and the Comanche payback
is merciless.

Surviving
Comanche leaders get together

and build a force of about
1,500 seasoned warriors,

and they are gonna seek vengeance

on white settlers
all across southern Texas.

The raid of 1840
is like no other in history.

Comanche bands unite
for a 200-mile rampage

that slices through
the heart of Texas

to the Gulf of Mexico.

They plunder two cities,

slaughter cattle,
and make off with 3,000 horses,

two dozen scalps,
and a half a dozen captives.

They burn the coastal town
of Linville to the ground.

But technology is about to turn
the tide against them.

Samuel Colt is one of
the great early entrepreneurs

in industrial technology
in American history.

He just so happens
to focus on firearms.

Back in 1836,

22-year-old Colt
patented a new invention,

a repeating pistol that can fire

five times in under 30 seconds,

a major upgrade from rifles

that can take a minute
to load just one shot.

Jack Hays, the first great Ranger,

immediately understood
that this could transform

warfare in the American West.

So he gets the Rangers
drilling on horseback.

They are doing exactly what
the Comanches are doing,

except they're doing it
with a different type of weapon.

The Colt six shooter fast becomes

part of the brand
of the Texas Rangers.

The Americans know without any

question that this is going to be
the key to taking the West.

By 1844,
nearly a decade has passed

since Cynthia Ann Parker

disappeared without a trace.

But out of the blue, an Indian agent
claims to have seen her.

She's now living as a Comanche.

She was covered in buffalo grease,

not unlike other Indian women.

She is now called Naduah,

which means "one who was found,"

or "one who keeps the family warm."

She has been married
for a number of years

to Peta Nocona, a chief

who was among the Comanches
who captured her.

They have two sons,

Quanah and Pecos.

And a daughter
by the name of Topsannah.

The Indian agent
tries to buy back Cynthia Ann,

but she refuses to leave.

This was an astounding revelation
to people in the frontier.

It was a shock
that she wouldn't return.

They say that she had
sort of gone over to the dark side.

White civilisation freaked out.

Let's imagine what it's like to be

an American settler woman
in the 1830s.

It's just bone grinding work.

And you're also
in a very patriarchal culture.

By comparison,
being a member of a tribe

was a world of freedom
for some of these captives.

She didn't want to come back.

The tribe didn't want
to give her up,

her husband didn't want
to give her up.

Cynthia Ann is not going anywhere.

It's 1844, an election year,

and the hottest political topic
is whether or not

to annex Texas,
a slave-holding republic.

The United States Congress
is deeply divided on the issue.

Westward expansion
exacerbates the issue of slavery,

because there had always been
this delicate balance

in America at that time
between those who were opposed

to the extension of slavery
and those who were interested

in expanding slavery.

James Polk runs for
president on the democratic ticket

and says that the United States
is going to annex Texas,

and all of Oregon, and he wins.

Then at that point,
it tips the balance in Congress.

On December 29th, 1845,

President Polk formally welcomes

a new slave state into the Union,

Texas,

deepening the nation's
growing divide over slavery.

But with this addition,
Polk sees yet another opportunity

for US expansion.

When President
James K. Polk takes office,

he quickly sends a large contingent
of American soldiers

down to the US-Mexico border

with the intention of provoking

a clash with Mexican soldiers.

And lo and behold,
that is precisely what happens,

and that becomes the pretext
for US declaring war on Mexico.

The Mexican war
can only be described

as a war of naked
imperial expansion and land grab.

It has no justification of any sort.

There's a lot of brutality in it.
Two years later,

the Mexican war ends in 1848
and the United States gains

an enormous new territory,

out of which a number of states
will be carved.

Principally California,
Arizona, New Mexico,

Utah, and part of Colorado.

Polk's victory over Mexico
gives the US

1.2 million square miles
of new land,

an instant 66% increase
to its territory,

that extends its boundary
to the Pacific Coast.

And to ensure the land is open
for American settlement,

Congress passes the
Indian Appropriations Act in 1851,

creating the reservation system.

The government claims
it will contain and protect

the Indigenous people
from American settlers moving west.

But many Native American tribes,

including the Comanche, fight back.

Peta Nocona began a series

of horrifically violent
Comanche raids.

The worst of the raids
are in the county named after

Cynthia Ann's uncle, Parker County.

To the Comanche,
Peta Nocona is revered

as a powerful protector.

With the Texans,
he's a violent terrorist

that's scaring off settlers.

In December of 1860,

US cavalryman Sul Ross

teams up with Texas Ranger,
Charles Goodnight,

to track down Nocona
and take him out.

They locate a Comanche supply depot.

They think this is where they're
gonna find Peta Nocona.

The camp was mostly
just women and children.

The men are out hunting.

But they attack anyway.

It's not a fair fight.

But one of them actually
turns out to be Cynthia Ann Parker,

who turns at the moment
where she's about to be killed

and holds up her small child.

And at first, they just assumed
she's another Comanche to be killed.

And when they got up close to her,

and they saw the blue eyes,
they're like, who is this?

They soon realise

this is the long-lost
famous Comanche captive,

the white woman that people

across the country
were hearing about.

Cynthia Ann Parker,
now 33 years old,

does not want to leave the Comanche.

But once again,
she's taken captive by an enemy,

this time with her baby daughter,
Topsannah.

The fate of her husband,

Peta Nocona, is lost to history.

The Texas Rangers assume that
her only desire is to be rescued

and taken back into the...
the world of her childhood.

Cynthia Ann and Topsannah

are reunited with their
white relatives, the Parkers,

who insist they give up
their Comanche ways

and learn the scriptures.

Soon after her capture,

the Parker family
parades her through town

in Western-style clothes.

Crowds flock to stare at her.

They're doing all of this
to be able to make a presentation

to the world, to the family,
that this can work.

She got held up in white society

as celebratory, as justice,

as finally coming home.

She was rescued by the Rangers.

But this was no rescue.

Cynthia Ann is devastated
being returned to white society.

It is not where she wants to be.

These people are strangers
to her now.

She is basically
held there under duress.

She tries to escape
back to the Comanches.

And they keep bringing her back
to Texas civilisation.

She's just despondent.

She's lost almost everything,

and she doesn't know what to do.

It's 1860

when Cynthia Ann Parker is "rescued"

and returned to her white kin.

That same year,
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois

is elected to the presidency.

His election immediately
touches off the Civil War.

At the start
of Lincoln's presidency,

only a quarter of families
in Texas owned slaves.

But a majority of Texan voters
support breaking off from the Union.

And on March 2nd, 1861,

Texas joins the Southern Confederacy

just six weeks before
the opening shots of the Civil War.

When the war breaks out,
soldiers in Texas

head for the Confederate Army.

And so, what were
heavily guarded areas in Texas

now are largely unguarded.

Many Texas Rangers also enlist.

In their absence, the Comanche
unleash a series of raids,

not only halting the flow
of settlers into West Texas,

but staring off
the ones already there.

But Cynthia Ann
stays in East Texas,

many miles from the raids,
with her white family...

...but has no idea
what happened to her husband

or to her son.

Cynthia Ann never
reconciled herself to her fate.

She never got used it,
she never forgot it.

She never stopped mourning
for both her husband

and for her two boys.

This one surviving photo

of Cynthia Ann and her daughter,

it speaks volumes.

Her hair is cut short in mourning,

and there's a sense of desperation,

of getting back to her family,

back to her Comanche people.

Topsannah was not
supposed to be in the picture,

but she was fussy,

and so Cynthia Ann takes her
and begins feeding her.

When the Civil War
finally comes to an end in 1865,

Congress abolishes slavery
in every state, old and new,

and begins the process
of reconstruction in the South.

Cynthia Ann and Topsannah
have survived the turmoil,

but perhaps in vain.

Topsannah
comes down sick with pneumonia.

She's very ill.

She doesn't survive.

Cynthia Ann
is beside herself with grief.

She's lost her husband,

her two boys,
and now her little girl.

She's lost everything.

Now completely severed
from her Comanche family,

Cynthia Ann refuses to eat

and purposefully wastes away.

She dies 11 years
after her second capture,

never reconciled,
never happy again,

and in mourning
'til the day that she died.

By the early 1870s,

many of the Plains Indians,
including the Sioux in the north

and the Apache in the south,

are being moved
onto reservations by the military.

But Cynthia Ann's son,
Quanah Parker,

now around 30 years old,

is leading a coalition of armed
resistance on the Southern Plains.

In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant

sends troops to the Texas panhandle,

determined to ensure the security
of white settlers

by forcing every last Comanche
onto the reservation.

The conflict will come to be known

as the Red River War.

The US government
make their final absolute attempt

to crush the Comanches
and other South Plains Indians

in this spectacular place called
Palo Duro Canyon in West Texas.

Federal soldiers led by
Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie

ambushed a Comanche village

and burned more than
400 teepees to the ground.

Mackenzie took 1,400 horses
that belonged the Comanches...

...and shot them.

They wouldn't fall over dead
like Hollywood movie actors.

They would take off bleeding.

So there's wild screaming horses
in all directions.

By the end of the year,

the remaining
Southern Plains Indians

fighting alongside Quanah Parker

surrender and move on
to reservations as ordered.

Quanah Parker,
he is the last holdout.

He is the last of the free roaming
Comanche leaders,

and the last of the resistance
to the United States

in this area of the country.

Unable to defeat
their enemy in battle,

the army instead
cuts off their food supply.

The US adopts an official policy

of exterminating the buffalo herds

that the Plains tribes live on.

The bison population
dropped to about 1,000.

It's a decline of 99.99996%

in basically two generations.

The bison are virtually gone.

The Comanche are being told
they're going to become

sedentary farmers, and they'll
be so much happier if they do.

The Native perspective
when it comes to farming...

...to be ploughing a field
behind a mule,

it's the lowliest thing
they could think of.

They just didn't want to do it.

Being a warrior and a hunter

was the highest pursuit.

But Quanah Parker and the Comanche
have almost nowhere to go

and nowhere to turn.

For almost two centuries,

the Comanche built an empire upon

the two most iconic animals
of the American West,

the horse and the buffalo.

Their nomadic way of life
depends on them both,

but now they're under attack.

And by 1875,

the Comanches,
the Lords of the Plain,

who once numbered 40,000,
are down to 1,500.

They either have to go extinct

by fighting to the last person,

or they have to cut
whatever deal they can

with the people who are taking
their world from them.

By the summer of 1875,

the only Comanche
still riding the Southern Plains

are Quanah Parker's band,
the Quahadi.

Quanah must decide
whether to give up control

of his ancestral lands forever,

or fight on and risk
the extermination of his people.

It's said, when Quanah was faced

at that crossroads of what to do,

he goes out to a nearby mesa.

He hears a wolf
howling in the distance...

...toward the direction of
southwestern Oklahoma,

of Fort Sill, where the cavalry

have long wanted
the Comanches to go.

And Quanah Parker
makes this decision...

...to finally go to the reservation,

to finally be corralled,

imprisoned on a very small

space of land
that is totally contrary

to how you and your people
have always moved about.

On June 2nd of 1875,

Quanah and his band surrender
at the Fort Sill reservation,

marking the end of the Red River War

and the last day
of the free Comanche.

It's the end of a war
that is in effect begun

by the taking captive

of this nine-year-old girl
with bright blue eyes,

and it ends with her son's...

surrender 40 years later.

The 1,500 Comanche left

with Quanah are now forced
to live on just 4,600 square miles

of reservation land,

less than 2%
of the size of Comancheria.

The vast Southern Plains
they once controlled

are soon turned into a patchwork
of fenced-in ranches and farms

owned by Texan settlers.

The tribes are no longer
independent.

They're no longer able to sustain
themselves on the buffalo.

They're dependent
on government handouts.

They had to accept rations.

They've been
put on these grasslands.

Not really much use for Comanches.

But the white cattlemen?

Quanah starts setting up deals
with some of the white ranchers

to graze their cattle.
He becomes an entrepreneur.

He starts acquiring wealth.

He built himself
a huge house where he had

Comanches camped
around it all the time.

He has eight wives,

at least 20, 25 children.

He becomes this bridge

between two cultures.

Theodore Roosevelt
becomes a friend of his,

and Roosevelt invites Quanah Parker
to Washington, DC

for his inauguration
on March 4th, 1905.

And Quanah talks about

packing his six shooter
to protect the President.

When Quanah crosses over...

...he's buried
right next to his mother

and also the remains
of his sister, Topsannah.

Cynthia Ann and Quanah

were separated in this life

and reunited at death.

In the end, it's a story
with a legacy of destruction,

of conquest, of dispossession

of Indian Peoples,
of cultural genocide

against those peoples.

We are a people with a mixed legacy.

We cannot understand who we are
unless we understand

where we came from,
and ask ourselves,

what can we do better?
What can we do better?

Despite the violence these two
empires inflicted on each other,

it's not just the US military
that defeats the Comanche.

It's the advancing power
of American industry.

Comancheria is carved up by trails,

rails, and telegraph lines.

The land is farmed and grazed
to feed a growing nation

and fuel its economy.

The open skies
and rolling plains still remain,

but the Comanche
are confined to reservations.

While Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker
both found a way

to embrace a different culture,

the story of Texas,

a land conquered
by American settlers,

will play out again in California.

Only this time,

the hunger for land is eclipsed

by the power of gold fever.
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