All language subtitles for Kevin Costners The West S01E04 1080p_English [English] (SUBRIP)

- 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 her herself at
the center of a battle

to control the heart
of the continent,

fought between
three bitter rivals,

the US, Mexico,
and the Comanche.

[gentle music]

- People live on myths,

and the myths that really stick
in the American experience

are the myths of the West.

[intense music]

The mountains were taller,
the deserts were harsher,

the snows were deeper.

- American West conjures wonder,
possibility, opportunity.

- The figure of
the mountain man.

- [Expert] Notorious outlaws.

- The cowboy.

- The discovery of
gold in California.

- [Expert] This train of wagons
trailing across the prairie.

- Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

- But most of that land
was already occupied.

[dramatic music]

- We have had 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.

[dramatic music]

- [Expert] 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.

- [Expert] The West is
this canvas on which

American dreams become
larger than life.

[resolvent music]

[tense music]

- [Kevin] 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.

[horse whinnying]
[tense music]

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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[pensive music]

- 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] Arriving
with 38 members

of the extended Parker family

is nine-year-old Cynthia Ann.

[children laughing]

- 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.

[tense music]

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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?

[tense music]

[tense music]

- [Kevin] 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.

[horse whinnying]

Suddenly, all hell breaks loose.

[dagger shears]
[raiders yelling]

It's obviously a killing raid.

[Benjamin screaming]

The Comanches stabbed
Cynthia Ann's uncle Benjamin

and scalp him while still alive.

[Benjamin screaming]

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 defense

in case any enemy came at you,

but the Parkers have
left their gate open.

And that's a problem.

[intense music]

- This quick scene of
violence, it's all about death.

- [Kevin] 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.

[people shouting]

[Cynthia screams]

- 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[solemn music]

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 gray.

- And she publishes a
memoir of her captivity.

- [Rachel] 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.

- [Kevin] 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 recognized 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.

- [Kevin] 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 favor 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."

[pensive music]

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[gunshot cracks]

One,

and they've got two
single shot pistols.

[gunshot cracks]

Their second problem
is they're afoot,

against Indians who can
discharge arrows at this rate,

[arrows whooshing]

mounted on fast horses.

Now who do you think
wins those fights?

- [Kevin] 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 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[gunshots cracking]

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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[pistol cocking]

- 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.

[pistol cocking]

[gunshot cracks]

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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 civilization 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[raiders yelling]
[tense music]

- [Kevin] To the Comanche,

Peta Nocona is revered
as a powerful protector.

But to Texans,

he's a violent terrorist
that's scaring off settlers.

[raiders yelling]

In December of 1860,

US cavalryman Sul Ross teams up

with Texas Ranger,
Charles Goodnight

to track down Nocona
and take him out.

- [Sam] 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.

[tense music]
[gunshots cracking]

It's not a fair fight.

[gunshots cracking]

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.

[Cynthia screams]

- 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?

[horse whinnying]

They soon realize

this is the long-lost
famous Comanche captive,

the white woman that
people across the country

were hearing about.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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 civilization.

- She's just despondent.

She's lost almost everything,

and she doesn't know what to do.

[pensive music]

- 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[raiders yelling]

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.

[tense music]

- 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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 mourning 'til the
day that she died.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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,

[horse whinnying]
and shot them.

[gunshots cracking]

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

They would take off bleeding.

So there's wild screaming
horses in all directions.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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 plowing 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.

- [Kevin] 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.

- [Kevin] 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

[wolf howling]

toward the direction of
southwestern Oklahoma,

of Fort Sill,

where the cavalry have long
wanted the Comanches to go.

[tense music]

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.

- [Kevin] 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.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] 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.

[tense music]

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.