A man of English American descent, he was a member of the large Parker frontier family that settled in east Texas in the 1830s.
[4] Though the families in the Parker group were beginning to build cabins outside the fort, the vast majority still slept inside for protection.
Elder John Parker had negotiated treaties with local Indian chiefs, and believed they would protect the little colony.
[2] On May 19, 1836, a large force of Comanche and allied warriors attacked the fort, killing five men and capturing two women and three children.
His brother Silas's children, Cynthia Ann and John Richard were also captured, as well as his stepsister Elizabeth Duty Kellogg.
[2] The horrific condition his daughter was in when she was ransomed, and her subsequent death, left James Parker with a lifelong hatred of the Comanche.
On the first page of his diary and written memories, James Parker dates his feelings about Indians from the War of 1812 and the death of his brother: This awakened in me feelings of the most bitter hostility towards the Indians, and I firmly resolved, and impatiently awaited, for an opportunity to avenge his death ... though I may despise their treachery, I pity their ignorance and mourn the wrongs I have received at their hands, yet I pray to God to enable me to forgive them, and to sincerely pray for the speedy civilization and Christianization of their whole race.
When she revived him, they returned and tied the infant to a rope, and dragged him through cactuses until the tiny body was torn to pieces.
Of her own rape and torture, Plummer said To undertake to narrate their barbarous treatment would only add to my present distress, for it is with feelings of the deepest mortification that I think of it, much less to speak or write of it.
[2] Parker's relentless pressing for action on the return of Comanche captives did, however, provide some impetus for the 1840 Council House Fight.
James Pratt Plummer was younger, more adaptable, and perhaps more importantly, his grandfather watched him a great deal closer.
When the father appealed to the Governor of Texas, who found for him, Parker simply refused to honor the order to return his grandson.
His nine-year search for his daughter, grandson, niece and nephew, had led him to adventures so incredible that he admitted in his published diary that he understood people not believing his tales.
another reason for omitting a detail of many of my sufferings and miraculous escapes is, that I am confident, few, if any, would believe them ... what I have narrated is nothing next to the awful reality ... My readers express some surprise that I always went on these tours alone.
I was not permitted to take a sufficient number of men to fight the Indians and my only hope was to steal or buy the prisoners from the enemy.
[7] Ben Parker recalled that, to his surprise, LeMay was not so much interested in Cynthia Ann but rather in her uncle James who had searched for her for eight years after her abduction.
[8][9][10] Critics and historians noted that James W. Parker, Cynthia Ann's uncle, spent much of his life and fortune in what became an obsessive search for his niece, like Ethan Edwards in the film.
[11] Glenn Frankel suggests that Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver probably comes the closest to re-imagining The Searchers for the modern age.
The Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) character is the obsessed and violent taxi driver whose twisted personal code and use of gun violence mirror those of Ethan Edwards/James Parker.
So does the object of the search who refuses to acquiesce to her own rescue, Jodie Foster who mirrors Cynthia Ann Parker.