Quanah

Quanah Parker, a Comanche in Texas in the 1800s, was possibly the most influential Native American war chief in American history. His mother, Cynthia Parker, was kidnapped by the Comanche in the early 1800s. She lived with them, grew, and forgot her white past. She married a warrior who was famous for being able to shoot his bow from a galloping horse, keeping nine arrows in the air at once.

The Comanche, under Quanah's leadership, single-handedly prevented the Spanish from expanding past Santa Fe, New Mexico, thus changing American history from what it may have been. When the buffalo were all slaughtered and his people were starving, Quanah brought them in to the reservation. He later became the first mixed-blood or Native American to become a success in the white world as a rancher.

Besides my other Scandinavian blood, I have some Texan Comanche blood. Quanah is one of my distant ancestors.