The Great Chiefs- THEIR COURAGE SHAPED A NATION.

Resting here until day breaks And shadows fall And darkness disappears Is Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Comanches. —Epitaph on Quanah Parker’s gravestone

Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, standing in the doorway of his Star House in Cache, Oklahoma Territory, circa 1890, fought for the rights of his people until his death in 1911.- Courtesy Library of Congress

On March 4, 1905, Comanche Chief Quanah Parker paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade. With him in the parade of 35,000 were five other Indian leaders: Geronimo, Little Plume, American Horse, Hollow Horn Bear and Buckskin Charlie, representing the Apache, Blackfeet, Oglala, Brulé and Ute people, respectively.

Despite criticism from politicians and the press that six Indian leaders who once fought against the United States would be in the parade, the befeathered leaders rode with dignity and pride, and were greeted along the parade route with applause.

According to the Baltimore Sun, when “Old Quanah Parker, who was nearest the President’s Stand, rose in his stirrups and shot his glance at the President in salutation,” Roosevelt heartily applauded and waved his hat in return. And marching right behind them were the cadets of the Carlisle Indian School. It seemed to all those optimistic about the future, that a new era was about to begin for Indians in America.