A large party of native raiders, including…

A large party of native raiders, including Comanches, Kiowas, Caddos, and Wichitas, attacks the inhabitants of Fort Parker on May 19, 1836, in what will come to be called the Fort Parker massacre.

In this raid, an eight-year old girl, Cynthia Ann Parker, is captured and is to spend most of the rest of her life with the Comanches, marrying a chief, Peta Nocona, and giving birth to a son, Quanah Parker, who is to become the last chief of the Comanches.

Her brother, John Richard Parker, who had been also captured, will be ransomed back after six years but, unable to adapt to white society, will run back to the Comanches.

Fort Parker had been founded about two miles (three kilometers) west of present-day Groesbeck, Limestone County, Texas, by John Parker, his sons, Benjamin, Silas and James, plus other members of the Pilgrim Predestinarian Baptist Church of Crawford County, Illinois, who, led by John and Daniel Parker, had come to Texas in 1833.

Daniel's party had first settled in Grimes County, and later moved to Anderson County near present-day Elkhart.

John Parker's group had settled near the headwaters of the Navasota River, and built a fort for protection against Native Americans, completing it in March 1834.

Soon, the settlers were making their homes and farming the land.

Several have built cabins on their farms, and use the fort for protection.

Peace treaties have been made with surrounding Native American chiefs.

Perhaps the Fort Parker inhabitants expected that other tribes will honor the treaties as well.

The Fort Parker inhabitants have also allowed a company of the newly constituted Texas Rangers to use the Fort, perhaps not understanding that many Native Americans regard the Rangers with hatred for their fighting tactics.