To write about the comanches in the great plains which is as far from connecticut as the frozen moons of jupiter. I will not bore you with the details of my past but to put it as briefly as possible i had my little epiphany in the spring of 1970. I had just been admitted to Princeton University and i was traveling there for a weekend where you see if you want to go there. It was a glorious day. Kind of like this morning actually. The spring was in full bloom per full bloom. I had taken a train and the last leg was on a smaller train which was the princeton to Princeton Junction that took the right to the campus. On the trip, i happened to be reading a book by f. Scott fitzgerald called this side of paradise. It was about life in princeton. At the time, it was absolutely magical. I happened to finish it as the train was pulling into the station. It is cute as a button. I was finishing it just as the train old in and i walked out and up onto the campus and i walked by 12 University Place which is where fitzgerald had lived where i just read about. I remember thinking at that moment there was nothing in the world i would rather do than to be able to write like scott fitzgerald. It was all downhill from there. [laughter] for the next 15 years i wrote a bunch of fiction and publish some of it. Got a graduate fellowship but none of what i did was much good unfortunately. It was not great stuff. I worked, i had jobs. I was a french teacher and a banker. All the while, i persisted in seeing myself as a writer and i would go home at night and read gertrude stein. Whatever writers were supposed to do, i would do. I was aware on some level as time went by that i was not exactly like scott and zelda living in paris, sipping champagne at the ritz. I was aware of that it was not happening for me. At some point it occurred i could make a living by writing so i became a reporter in my early 30s. If i got better and better at nonfiction, the fiction dream slowly went away everything now , in my age everything is black and white. It is hard for me to understand myself were things were not so absolute where you could be an International Banker or a writer. The fiction dream went away then in one great glorious a desk glorious, spectacular cataclysm, which was a 700 word novel. The main effect was to cause my agent in new york not to return my phone calls. [laughter] then it was gone and it was a cathartic experience. It did not happen that long ago but it had to be done and we all realize what we cannot do. I dont look back and i dont regret it. I dont think of myself as a failed novelist. I dont care, i dont even read fiction that much anymore. It comes down to a legendary blank page that the writer sees. That blank page for a fiction writer is an absolutely astonishing thing. On that blank page theres no rules at all. It could be about iran or mars or new jersey horrible will be or life or what am i supposed to birth. Do . I dont know. Applying journalism as well as my history it is palpable or rio something very real that you hang onto minstar with the premise of the real. So i ended up in austin, texas as executive editor of a magazine called Texas Monthly , essentially learning what i know how to do now. It was in texas were all of his comanche nonsense started. When i told my journalist friends i was writing the history of the comanches. I got a lot of blank stares you can see the of wheels turning in their tiny little news driven brains what the angle was. Is there an Indian NationHealth Care Obama no, no, no just a dusty history something that happened 300 years ago. They would say we cannot wait to , read it. [laughter] meaning, good luck, jackson. Frankly, i did not care. We should all do things that we want to do. The fact is a lot of us write books but very few are interested in jumping back into history partly because, not to run them down to badly, but reporters have the Attention Span of a gnat. You can check your thesis out in the Princeton Library so my plan is to go check it out and take it somewhere and burn it. [laughter] but i have not done that yet. I am just not this guy. Im not a historian, i was not sitting at Oklahoma University mulling over native American History. So why does a reporter become interested in something that happened in the faraway past . It is something called generational memory. I grew up in connecticut in massachusetts. A part of the country were native american tribes were subdued a long time ago. I was aware of the indians on cape cod, even playing summer baseball. They cease to exist as the free tribe 100 years before my ancestors got off the boat and nobody really knew about the mohicans or at all a consequence because too much time had intervened. Nobody had a conceivable memory of them. The frontier was not part of my upbringing. In texas, where i moved in 1994, the whole sense of the frontier and native americans was radically different. In fact, i never would have written this book or have gone near this book if i had not moved to texas. One of those circumstances that happens to you when you move around. In texas it was part of my job , to travel the state and write the stories for Time Magazine then Texas Monthly. I met a lot of people who told me about the comanches. One lady who sat next to me at Texas Monthly had both of her great grandparents were killed and a comanche raid. I knew my great grandparents. Somebodys grandfather had done business with Quanah Parker. Theres a sense of the immediacy of the frontier. Often in my travels, it was this weird mixing of legend and history. I am up in a little town near Wichita Falls in north texas. I am up there and doing a story about these great baseball gloves. The factory burned down and the town was struggling. I was sitting at a bar with some old guy and he was telling me about this battle that took place. I had no idea what he was talking about. What he was talking about was the end of the Spanish Power in the new world. It was the battle in a 7058 where the comanches rode the spanish back. Im talking about the end of the spanish world. In the new world. It was the stories and things like that. Here i am, traveling around the state. One of the reasons of course is for the immediacy of the frontier, the last of the indians surrendered in 1875 and after that, there was a good deal of jostling on and off the reservation. Things are happening validity 20thcentury. Well into the 20th century. The frontier was the immediate thing. The tribe that was featured in most of the stories there were a lot of wichita in a bunch of other tribes. The crowd you always tried to always heard about were comanches. For me when i was growing up comanches were a word in a john wayne movie and it was always a code word for danger. That is the comanche arrow. We are in trouble now. Always like that. You did not know why the comanches were bad. But they were bad and they were very bad folks. I did not know anything else about them. There was a remembering of the past going on in texas that got me interested in this story. But what got me interested enough was not just this remembering of the past, but also forgetting. A simultaneous and contradictory revelation. Although the old folks of the plane often remembered, as most people forgot. Texas is the fastestgrowing state 500,000 people per year , coming and coming from illinois and mexico they dont know these things. My daughter did not know these things. She grew up in texas and she is 19. In 1940 i would venture to say every single schoolchild in the state of texas new the story of symbian parker, the whole thing the kidnapping. Her son was the last of the greatest chiefs talk to a texan above a certain age they could tell you those things. This is a good story if you have read my book one of my great discoveries was a guy named jack hayes. The original and greatest ranger. He was the man. One of the the greatest indian fighter of the planes and one of the greatest commanders america ever produced. He developed in the comanche war techniques that were for that had never existed before later use with brutal effectiveness with the war in mexico. He adapted a failed invention by sam colt. It was said before jack came into the American West everybody came on foot lugging the rifle but after him, they came on horseback carrying six guns. I am leading up to something because i am trying to describe the process of remembering and forgetting. Jack hayes seem to be completely forgotten. Just south of austin, there is a county named hayes county, named after john. Inside, there is a high School Called hayes high school, named after him. In a state that absolutely treasures rangers i mean Texas Rangers are mythical. Would you suppose in the state that the mascot of the High School Team would be the rangers . No. They are the rebels. [laughter] now, i have no problem with rebels except jack hayes left texas in 1849 to become the first sheriff of San Francisco during the gold rush. He is not a rebel, he is a ranger. Nobody in hayes county knows who he is, nobody and the high school. Nobody in san antonio, where he invented the six shooter knows who he is. This was going on. Here was a great opportunity i saw as a writer with this book. Im a relatively smart guy and i was even living in texas and i did not know who these guys were. Have you ever heard of geronimo . Everybody heard of him. Ever heard of Quanah Parker . No. Ever heard of custer . Yes. Here of mackenzie the actual greatest fighter . Never heard of that. John coffee hayes who should be a household word like Davy Crockett but he is not . No. You can just keep going. The fact is for me as a writer i could go sell a book in new york to people who didnt have a clue. Not only to an editor who gives me many which they do but i could sell to a country that had never heard of these guys. What it a cool thing. There were books done about these things. They tended to be prisoners of their region. Texas a m press, 700 copies. There is no distribution. I saw my opportunity. I took it. The comanche story is just one of the Great Stories and what i love about it is it is like the best kind of a School Lesson you could get from the most beloved history professor. It uses a vehicle, in this case, the comanche tribe, to teach you how the west was won. It was not one until it was lost. Won until it was lost. They constituted an incredible physical barrier to everything that happened in the west the mexicans and texans and americans and spanish and everybody else. And determined what happened around them. They occupied the southern plains, 250,000 square miles. They basically in a sense held up themselves to be progress of the american empire. Before that they blocked the , northward expansion of america partly the reason is the spanish provided them with an astonishing piece of technology. It was the attempt to move west. Turns out they made the mistake of farming that comanche and amaze. Texas exist because of comanches. What does it exist . Here is what happened. The mexicans needed to stabilize the northern border. They own the texas in one way to do that the israelis have discovered is you settle it and put people there. The more you settle, the more you stabilize it. These rednecks from alabama and tennessee, these scott irish people, were guys like Davy Crockett they had no problem coming in to settle in this land. This grand plan of mexico backfired because these texans wanted independence after a little bump at the alamo. I got it. This is in part, a misguided scheme to stop the comanches. A pretty good way to tell list three to someone who does not know the history of texas. The six shooters, the rangers are a product of the comanches and finally with the comanches and a 40 year war on a single line frontier draw a line through santillan san antonio to dallas and that is where the frontier sat for 40 years. Nothing even remotely similar happened with any other tribe. I call them the most powerful tribe in American History and people ask me if i meant that if i meant who would win. I dont mean that even though they were fabulous war years what i mean is the power to influence the course of history. No tribe has such a determinant effect on what happened in north america. The plains tribes were mounted. No tribes in the east remounted. You could find them. Course bound tribes were far harder to eradicate. That is a big military picture of my story. On one side, you have the rise and all of comanches, which is interesting. But the other side is the more intimate and small story of the Parker Family. This little, nineyearold girl gets taken in this raid in 1836. The big picture is the comanches by then, the Parker Family. The organizing event of this book is this raid near 1836. It was one of those small moments in history. It was a small moment that come in retrospect, has astonishingly large historical prevalence. This was the year the Parker Family had built a stockade 90 miles south of dallas. What they were out so far on the comanche front tier it was almost ridiculous. You really wonder how you could bring children out there. They were way beyond anybody else on the frontier. In fact, one thing i think to keep in mind if youre thinking about the way the American West was settled, people sometimes think there was a sweep across that went north or south. It was not. It was all south. The human frontier was in texas. Nothing going on up north. The great clash was down in the south. In this raid, five people were killed, a bunch of people were wounded. Five cap does captives were taken, one was cynthia anne parker. This is a routine raid. They had been doing this for many, many years. But in historical terms it was a defining moment of the front ier. It marked the start of the longest and most brutal war between americans and a single native tribe. Also because it involved the woman who was to be the most famous captive. It took place precisely at the point where the westward booming american empire the parker did not realize this you have this enormous, american empire moving west. Meeting eight 250,000 square mile comanche empire. Nobody could see this at the time. It really was right there. That is where the parkers build the house. How they had any idea that is what they were doing i am sure they never would have done it. Why was that empire there . It is very interesting. The reason it was there is a result of 150 years of sustained combat with one goal of the south plains. Why . That is where the buffalo were. Over 150 years the comanches essentially use their unbelievable mastery of the horse to challenge as they went south, eventually gaining what they wanted which was the south plains, which is where the buffalo were. That is where the parkers put their house, right on the edge of that. Pretty good idea. This is where they built the frontier paradise and the chain of events one more thing that is really interesting about where they put the house. If you look at america before columbus, the entire east coast was one dense grimm brothers forest. It was dense. Dense. It went from the east coast to the 98th meridian. Right through the middle of texas. Right from san antonio, through dallas, and essentially, it was a bizarre thing. You have the culture and the east of the woods, based on timber, land, water. When you got past the treelined , this is a terrifying moment. No trees to build houses. No water. All of that happened right there so that house was at the edge of that moment, that physical, geological moment where the land changed and that was there. It is an amazing little place they picked to build their house. We have that captivity of cynthia parker. She bore three children, refused to come back. Famous as the white squall who would not return. That story played out. Her oldest son was one of parker, the greatest comanche warrior of his age. I will tell you one really great story about him. I consider Quanah Parker one of the most extraordinary of the 19th century. Probably the most formidable comanche warrior of his era. He led the last of the comanches into the terrible dying days of 1875 and the buffalo had all been killed after all the other tribes have surrendered. He moved to the comanche reservation and transformed himself in oklahoma the way that his mother had. She had adapted brilliantly to the comanche culture. Now he adapted to the white culture. He went from the fiercest plains warrior to the most successful , influential indian of the period and controlled a small cattle empire, outfoxed the white man to the leasing games. He accumulated a large fortune of almost all of which he gave away to help his fellow comanches. The year is 1871. Keep in mind a 35 years after the first battle of the comanche. The frontier was still shockingly where it had been. It was not moving. Keep in mind, this is after the civil war. The men who are running america are these grim warriors who have destroyed the south. The president is ulysses s. Grant. And these are the men who were running things. 1871, they unleashed the greatest war machine in American History. World history. We are looking at this tribe that was sitting there holding up everything. In 1871, one of the reasons the comanches were still there as i point out is the civil war took the attention away from the plains. In 1871, that attention was no longer focused on the war or reconstructions but now look to see what we will do about the comanche problem. Quanah parker was 23 years old at the time, the leader of the most remote, hostile of all of the comanche band in the panhandle, amarillo. They were an amazing bunch. They kept away from the white man contracted very few of the , diseases. They had 15,000 horses. One of the ways they kept away from the white man is they traded with men who operated out of new mexico. You see them in movies as a rough bunch. So grant and sherman decide they have had enough so t