LASALLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL A.P.UNITED STATE HISTORY SUMMER READING 2016 SOCIAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT BOOK: Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanche’s, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.G. Gwynne ISBN: 13: 978-1416591061 Kindle Availability: $12.99 OBJECTIVE: Read Empire of the Summer Moon by S.G. Gwynne to help you to understand the complex issues surrounding the history of Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. First you will analyze the importance of the Comanche’s in the pre-Columbian history of Texas. Then you will examine the broader culture of the Plains Indians and the inevitable conflict that developed between whites and Indians. Finally you will come to understand the logic of American Manifest Destiny and the implied “final solution” to the Indian problem as it unfolded in the post-civil war era, evaluating the treaty systems as they existed to determine if justice was served for the American Indian. Summer reading/writing assignment based on Empire of the Summer Moon It is advised that you refer to the study guide provided in this letter to assist you in reading the work. You must arrive on the first day of class with a concise and organized five (5) paragraph (More but not less) essay in response to EACH of the following (3) questions. You must use direct quotes, specific examples, and page citations from the work. Question # 1 Compare and contrast the development of the Comanche Indian identity to that of the Anglo Population immigrating to Western Texas during the 19th century. Be sure to comment on the plight of Cynthia Ann Parker and her life in the crosshairs of both cultures. Question # 2 F. Scott Fitzgerald once suggested that ‘there are no second acts in American lives’. Quanah Parker’s life serves as an exception to that rule as it was completely changed after the final capture of his Comanche band in June 1875. This end to the wild life of the Comanche’s was merely the beginning of something very new and very different. He would spend the rest of his life remaking and reinventing himself as a prosperous, tax- paying citizen of the United States of America who dressed in wool suits and Stetson hats, attended school board meetings and hosted dinner parties with the President of the United States….all the while looking out for the Comanche Nation as a father. The notion that a late Stone Age barbarian would move into the mainstream of industrial American culture was just short of ridiculous. A half-breed Comanche warrior of jaw- dropping aggressiveness, Parker was to become a bourgeois statesman, a prosperous burgher, a religious leader and businessman who played the game of capitalism as well as anyone in Texas. Quanah never looked back. How did this happen? Identify 3 personal characteristics and 3 specific actions which allowed Quanah Parker to transform himself from a wild warrior and become the most successful and influential Native American of the late 19th century. Question #3 “The defeat of the Spanish at the hands of the Comanche’s ‘changed the history of the West and the fate of North America forever.” “The year 1836 was the most ‘tumultuous and transformative’ year in the history of Texas”. “The date October 3rd, 1871 marked the ‘beginning of the ‘final solution’ for American Indians”. Explain and connect these 3 watersheds in Texas and American History. How they all are related to the rise and fall of the Comanches – the most powerful Indian tribe in American History. The following is your READING GUIDE to the book Empire of the Summer Moon. It is only a guide; NOT an assignment. Use it to summarize your thoughts after reading each chapter EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON Chapter One A New Kind of War 1. October 3, 1871 marked the ‘beginning of the end of the Indian Wars in American History 250 years of bloody combat a ‘final solution’ had begun. Explain the meaning of this ‘final solution’? 2. Locate and describe the geography of Coronado’s Llano Estacado. In what way was it the ‘edge of the universe for white men? 3. Why were US troops going into this territory, populated exclusively by the most hostile Indians on the American Continent? Who was their leader? In what way was he President Grant’s ‘agent of destruction’? Why did he become an ‘agent of retribution’? 4. Describe the ‘hostiles’ of the Great Plains. Who were the Comanche’s? What was ‘special’ about them? 5. “If the Indian marauders are not punished, the whole country seems in a fair way of becoming totally depopulated.” In what way were the Comanche’s ‘rolling back civilization’ both American and Spanish? 6. What was the importance of the Salt Creek Massacre? What did it demonstrate about the methods and determination of the Comanche’s? 7. ‘Hundreds of {North American} tribes had either perished from the earth or had been driven west. Trace some of these examples. How was the history of the Comanche’s different? 8. Describe the extent of ‘greatest mass destruction of warm blooded animals in human history’ as it relates to the American buffalo. 9. Describe the band of Comanche’s known as the “Quahadis’. What made them unique among the other hostile Plains Indians? In what way was their land ‘like a bad hallucination’ to Europeans? 10. Describe the meaning of the title of this chapter. Chapter Two A Lethal Paradise 1. Why is the year 1836 the ‘tumultuous and transformative’ year in the history of Texas? Trace the birth of the sovereign nation called the Republic of Texas. 2. What was Parker’s Fort? Why was it ‘an extremely dangerous place’? 3. Describe how the raid on Parker’s Fort triggered the longest and most brutal of all wars between Americans and a single Indian tribe? 4. What was the outcome of the raid? In what way did this raid typify the tactics and methods of the Comanche’s? 5. Reconstruct the ‘logic of Comanche raids’? Why were they so ‘depraved’ and brutal? Did they reserve this brutality only for white men? 6. If the Parker’s knew about the brutality of the Comanche’s, why did they settle where they did…’in a place where almost every waking moment held a mortal threat”? 7. Describe the ‘breed’ of men and women who pushed American civilization westward into Texas. How was their method different than the spread of the Spanish Empire? 8. What was the typical attitude of these agents of civilization toward Indians? In what way was Quanah Parker’s family a nearly perfect example of this attitude? Explain the irony! 9. Describe the treatment of the survivors of the Parker’s Fort Raid. What became of Cynthia Ann and Rachel and 14 month old James Plummer? How do we know? 10. Describe the meaning of this chapter. Chapter Three Worlds in Collision 1. Describe the extent and power of the Comanche Empire. How is language a significant sign of their domination? 2. Given the extent of this empire, how is it possible that Anglo-Americans knew so little about the Comanche’s? 3. Explain the motive for the Mexican encouragement of Americans to settle in Texas in the 1820’s. What is so ironic about this? 4. Identify early contact between Americans and Comanche’s. In what way was the Comanche territory as ‘unknown as unexplored regions of Africa’. 5. What is the significance of the fact that the Comanche’s who raided Parker’s fort were mounted? 6. Describe the early Comanche culture. What happened to transform the Nermernuh people from such a backward tribe of Stone Age hunters to one of the most powerful forces of civilization on the North American continent? 7. Describe the nature of the ‘horse revolution’ from the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico with their Iberian mustang, the transmission of Spanish horse culture and the dispersal of the horses in herds throughout North America. 8. What was the importance of the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in terms of the Great Horse Dispersal? How did this event alter the power structure of the Great Plains. What role did the Apaches play in this change? 9. How did horse technology change the method of hunting and war making? 10. “I am ready, without hesitation, to pronounce the Comanche’s the most extraordinary horsemen I have seen yet in all my travels ...The finest light cavalry in the world.” What additions to “horse technology” did the Comanche’s create? Explain the meaning of the title of this chapter? Chapter Four High Lonesome 1. “With these remarks, I submit the following pages to the perusal of a generous public; feeling assured that before they are published, the hand that penned them will be cold in death.” Briefly describe the memoir of captivity of Rachel Plummer Parker. 2. Describe and locate the heart of the Comancheria, otherwise known as the Great American Desert. In what ways was it ‘incomprehensible’ and ‘alien’ ‘oceanic’ and terrifying to “white Americans?” Why was this the last part of the country to be settled? 3. Describe the ‘least hospitable’ climate of this territory. Describe a ‘norther’; a blue norther’; a blizzard; a whiteout. 4. Describe the logic of kidnapping Rachel Plummer in terms of the buffalo economy. What were the ‘value- added’ chores which the women performed? 5. “My little innocent baby was not only dead, but literally torn to pieces.” Based on the buffalo economy, why was it important for men to become polygamous? Why was it important to have slaves such as Rachel? Why was her seven week old baby strangled? 6.