Cynthia Ann Parker, Naduah, Narua, or Preloch[7] (Comanche: Na'ura, IPA: [naʔura], lit.

'Was found';[8] October 28, 1827[nb 1] – March 1871),[1] was a woman who was captured, aged around nine, by a Comanche band during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836, where several of her relatives were killed.

Twenty-four years later she was relocated and taken captive by Texas Rangers, aged approximately 33, and unwillingly forced to separate from her sons and conform to European-American society.

For the remaining 10 years of her life, she mourned for her Comanche family, and refused to adjust to white society.

Unable to grasp how thoroughly she identified with the Comanche, the European-American settlers believed that she had been saved or redeemed by being returned to their society.

John Parker, the patriarch of the family, had been a noted ranger, scout, Native American fighter, and soldier for the United States.

[9] On May 19, 1836, a force of from 100 to 600 Native American warriors, composed of Comanche and Kiowa and Kichai allies, attacked the community.

John Parker and his men did not comprehend the military prowess of the Comanche, and were unprepared for the ferocity and speed of the Indian warriors.

They fought a rearguard action to protect some of the escaping women and children, but soon the settlers retreated into the fort.

[citation needed] They had three children: sons Quanah, who became the last free Comanche chief,[11] and Pecos (Pecan), and a daughter Topsannah (Prairie Flower).

Ranger Ross and several of his men pursued the man who had appeared as the leader, and who was fleeing alongside a woman rider.

In 1861, the Texas legislature granted her a square league of land (about 4,400 acres or 18 km2) and an annual pension of $100 (~$3,391 in 2023) for the next five years.

[20] The only known document from the period supports the March 1871 date; an 1870 census for Anderson County lists her as a member of the O'Quinn household, born "abt 1825," age forty-five.

In 1910, Parker's son, Quanah, moved her remains and had them reinterred in Post Oak Mission Cemetery near Cache, Oklahoma.

The town of Groesbeck holds an annual Christmas Festival at the site of old Fort Parker every December.

Author and screenwriter Michael Blake said that the character of Stands with a Fist in the 1990 film Dances With Wolves, was actually based upon Parker.