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The Captivity Narratives of Cynthia Ann Parker : Settler Colonialism, Collective Memory, and Cultural Trauma." (2019)

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The Captivity Narratives of Cynthia Ann Parker : Settler Colonialism, Collective Memory, and Cultural Trauma. University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-2019 The ac ptivity narratives of Cynthia Ann Parker : settler colonialism, collective memory, and cultural trauma. Treva Elaine Hodges University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hodges, Treva Elaine, "The captivity narratives of Cynthia Ann Parker : settler colonialism, collective memory, and cultural trauma." (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3256. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/3256 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES OF CYNTHIA ANN PARKER: SETTLER COLONIALISM, COLLECTIVE MEMORY, AND CULTURAL TRAUMA By Treva Elaine Hodges B.A., The University of Alabama, 2006 M.A., The University of Alabama, 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities Department of Comparative Humanities University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky August 2019 THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES OF CYNTHIA ANN PARKER: SETTLER COLONIALISM, COLLECTIVE MEMORY, AND CULTURAL TRAUMA By Treva Elaine Hodges B.A., The University of Alabama, 2006 M.A., The University of Alabama, 2008 A Dissertation Approved on July 23, 2019 by the following Dissertation Committee: ____________________________________________________ Dissertation Co-Chair Dr. Susan Jarosi, Department of Art History, Hamilton College ____________________________________________________ Dissertation Co-Chair Dr. Lara Kelland, Department of History, University of Louisville ____________________________________________________ Dr. Frank Kelderman, Department of English, University of Louisville ____________________________________________________ Dr. Kristine Stiles, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my partner and best friend, Edward Howard Byers who taught me a healthier performance of humanity. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my mentor Dr. Susan Jarosi, for her guidance, patience, and persistence in seeing me through to completion of this project when I know the demands on her time were many. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Lara Kelland, who has, on more than one occasion, indulged my impromptu office visits and has freely passed along encouragement and praise, Dr. Frank Kelderman, who has shared selflessly his knowledge and well-worn extra copies of much needed books, and Dr. Kristine Stiles, whose thoughtful reflections on trauma provided the impetus for this project. I would also like to express my thanks to my spouse, Ed Byers, for showing his faith in me and nurturing me during the most intense days of this project. Also, many thanks to my family and friends across the US who reached out to offer reassurance, advice, and comfort, and who overlooked their missing birthday cards for a year. Specifically, I thank my daughter, Miranda, whose directive, “Just write your paper, Mom!” provided the extra boost I needed to finish. Finally, I am thankful to Ron Parker and Cindy Parker Famero who shared their time and experiences with me in honor of their grandmother, Cynthia Ann Parker. iv ABSTRACT CULTURAL TRAUMA AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE OF CYNTHIA ANN PARKER Treva Elaine Hodges July 23, 2019 This dissertation explores representations of the captivity narrative of Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo woman captured as a child by Comanche, with whom she lived in a kinship relationship until her forced return to Anglo society twenty-four years later. The project draws upon trauma theory to explain the persistent appeal of Parker’s narrative. Interpretations analyzed include the original historical account of Parker’s narrative, and appearances in the genres of opera, film, graphic novel, and historical fiction. The dissertation reveals how appearances of Parker’s narrative correspond to periods in US history in which social change threated the dominant position of Anglo American men. The primary argument is that captivity narratives serve to reinforce hegemonic Anglo masculinity promoted by the American settler colonial system. The dissertation is divided into six chapters organized chronologically to demonstrate the significance of Parker’s narrative in various historical moments. Chapter One provides a historical overview of Parker’s story and briefly reviews the impact of captivity narratives. Chapter Two explores the first formal historical account of Parker’s narrative and discusses the significance of myth to conceptions of Americanism during the Progressive Era. Chapter Three examines Julia Smith’s interpretation of Parker’s v narrative via her opera, Cynthia Parker, to show how expansion of rights for white women between World Wars I and II failed to translate to equal rights for all due to the persistence of the racial hierarchy established by the settler colonial system. In Chapter Four, John Ford’s film The Searchers demonstrates how Parker’s narrative helped reinforce the social position of Anglo men returning from World War II. Chapter Five looks to alternative forms of Parker’s narrative in the graphic novel, White Comanche, and historical fiction, Ride the Wind, to demonstrate how Anglo writers, even when attempting to center Native people as agents in Parker’s story, continue to reinforce negative stereotypes that perpetuate the supremacy of Anglo masculinity. The final chapter briefly looks at the current political and social climate of the US to demonstrate how the long-term insidious trauma inherent in the settler colonial system continues to impact racial and gender hierarchical performance. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………….iv ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………v LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………………….viii CHAPTER I “INTRODUCTION” ……………...………………………………………..1 CHAPTER II “RECAPTURED MEMORIES” ……...………………………………….29 CHAPTER III “PIONEERING NOSTALGIA IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS” ………………………………………………………………….58 CHAPTER IV “SEARCHING FOR LOST MASCULINITY” …………..…………….93 CHAPTER V “APPROPRIATING CULTURAL TRAUMA” ………..……………....126 CHAPTER VI “CONCLUSION RECONSTRUCTING CULTURAL TRAUMA” …………………………………………………………………………………………..162 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………...176 CURRICULUM VITA ………………………………………………………………...192 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Photo of Cynthia Ann Parker and daughter taken in 1861 ………………………...…3 2. Comancherîa 1740-1840 ……………………………………………………….........136 3. Rape of Captives – Comic Panel from White Comanche …………………………...138 4. Pease River Attack – Comic Panel from White Comanche ………………………....139 5. Chief Paha-Yuca – Comic Panel from White Comanche …………………………...142 6. Parker as Pure Comanche – Comic Panel from White Comanche ……………..........145 7. Quanah at War – Comic Panel from White Comanche ……………………………...147 8. Ride the Wind book cover …………………………………………………………...155 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On May 19, 1836, approximately one month after Anglo-American settlers violently established the Republic of Texas through war with Mexico, a large group of Comanche, along with their Native allies, raided Parker’s Fort near present day Groesbeck, Texas, and took captives from among the settlers who inhabited the fort.1 Of those taken, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker became the most famous. Her Comanche captors adopted Parker into their family and when she matured she married a Comanche man with whom she had three children. Seventeen years after her initial abduction, Parker encountered American traders interested in ransoming her, yet reports document that she rejected their offer and chose to remain with her adopted Comanche family.2 Seven years later, having lived in a kinship relationship with Comanche for a total of twenty-four years, Parker was forcefully returned to American society when a group of Texas Rangers found her with her two-year-old daughter in a raid of a Comanche hunting camp on December 19, 1860. In an attempt to ease Parker’s rehabilitation into Anglo society, the Texas legislature granted her a portion of land and an annual stipend of $100 1 Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family (College Station: University of Texas A&M Press, 2001), 53. 2 The first reports of sightings of Parker by traders are recounted in James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker: The story of her capture at the massacre of the inmates of Parker's Fort; of her quarter of a century spent among the Comanches, as the wife of the war chief, Peta Nocona; and of her recapture at the battle of Pease River, by Captain L.S. Ross, of the Texian rangers (St. Louis: Printed for the Author, 1886), 32, and Glenn Frankel, The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 63. 1 to be managed by her uncle and brother-in-law.3 For the next ten years, Parker’s Anglo family members shuffled
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