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| While three of the other four captives of the raid were eventually ransomed, Parker was raised by Comanches, adopting their language and ways. She married chief Peta Nocona, who had led the Fort Parker attack, and the couple had two sons, Pecos and Quanah, and a daughter, Topsannah. Parker was recaptured, with Topsannah, by Anglos on December 17, 1860. Though her eyes were still blue and her skin still fair, the 34 year-old had been assimilated into the Comanche culture ... Parker had become a Comanche, heart and soul. | |||||||||
| Her final four years were spent in virtual captivity, living with blood relatives and begging to be allowed to return to her husband, sons, and family roaming the Plains. She was denied, her keepers refusing to recognize her fundamental transformation, and she died in 1864 of influenza and self-inflicted starvation, soon after burying her daughter. | |||||||||
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