Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

Six days into Rachel’s captivity, Rachel’s aunt, Elizabeth, was given to a band of Kichai people who were on friendly terms with the Comanches. Cynthia Ann and her brother John went with one band of Comanches while Rachel and her son James went with another; however, as soon as the Comanches learned that Rachel had breastfed James, they removed him from her, and she never saw him again. The motivation behind this act was simple: The Comanches always divided the spoils of their raids among themselves as equitably as possible, and captives were just part of the bounty to be divvied up, just like furs and horses.

The Comanche economy was solely interested in three things: horses, buffalo hides, and captives. The Comanches were a polygamous people, mainly because it was the women who performed all the labor in producing hides, and thus, a Comanche male with many wives could obtain more hides. If he didn’t have many wives, a Comanche male could have enslaved captives. Therefore, Rachel became exactly that.

Rachel quickly became proficient in the Comanche tongue. She was pregnant at the time of her kidnapping, and when she gave birth, the Comanches killed her son by dragging him behind a horse.