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

by S.C. Gwynne

Champion had the same impression. “I don’t think she ever knew but that her sons were killed,” he wrote. “And to hear her tell of the happy days of the Indian dances and see the excitement and pure joy which shown [sic] on her face, the memory of it, I am convinced that the white people did more harm by keeping her away from them than the Indians did by taking her at first.”49 Whatever chance she may have had at contentment was destroyed in 1864 when Prairie Flower died of influenza and pneumonia.50 The little girl’s death shattered her. Now there was nothing left of her Comanche life but memories. What her day-to-day life was like in the years after that is largely unknown. The Comanche version is unambiguous: The white men broke her spirit and made her a misfit. She became bitter over her enforced captivity, refused to eat, and eventually starved herself to death.51 She lived six more years, until 1870, when she died of influenza, which may well have been complicated by self-starvation.