Chronology of American Indian History

the girls, the Paiute in retaliation set fire to a mail
station along the trail, killing five whites. To avenge
the attack, about 100 white miners join the ranks of a
volunteer army led by Major William Ormsby. As the
army approaches the Big Bend of the Truckee River
on May 12, they are ambushed by warriors, who kill
46 soldiers. The governor of California sends out a
second army, about 800 men, which attacks the Pai-
ute near Pinnacle Mountain. About 25 Paiute are
killed before the outnumbered Indian forces ask for
peace, thus ending the brief Paiute War.

December

Cynthia Ann Parker is “rescued” by the
U.S. Army.
During an attack on a Comanche camp along the
Pease River, U.S. troops encounter a woman hold-
ing up a baby and shouting “Americanos” to dissuade
them from shooting her and her child. The soldiers
take the woman, and she is soon identified as Cyn-
thia Ann Parker, who had been taken captive by the
Comanche when she was nine years old (see entry for
MAY 19, 1836). Parker, accompanied by her infant
daughter Topsannah, is taken to live with her white
family after her well-publicized “rescue.” Although
newspaper accounts celebrate the reunion, she is ter-
rified of her white relatives and despondent at being
separated from her Comanche husband and sons—
one of whom, Quanah, will later emerge as a great
tribal leader. Cynthia Ann Parker attempts to end her
misery by starving herself to death before finally suc-
cumbing to influenza in 1870.

1861

The Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho cede
lands in the Treaty of Fort Wise.
In preparation for Colorado statehood, U.S. negotia-
tors compel the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho to
give up claim to nearly all their lands in Colorado Ter-
ritory, in the Treaty of Fort Wise. The Indians retain
only a small tract of land along the Arkansas River at
Sand Creek, in what is now southeastern Colorado.

Although the government intends for the Indians to

abandon buffalo hunting and become settled farm-

ers, the lands at Sand Creek are too infertile to sustain

the tribes. Starving and suffering from an epidemic of

smallpox, Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho hunters

will soon ignore orders to stay within the reservation

boundaries as they go off in search of buffalo herds.

February 4

Cochise escapes from U.S. soldiers in the

Cut-the-Tent Affair.

At the request of U.S. Army lieutenant George Bas-

com, Chiricahua Apache leader Cochise agrees to

Cynthia Ann Parker with her daughter Topsannah, pho-

tographed after Parker was taken from her

Comanche family. Her short hairstyle is a traditional

Comanche symbol of mourning. (Joseph Taulman

Collection, CN 805, The Center for American History, The

University of Texas at Austin)