Captivity diaries, those often brutal accounts of settlers taken prisoner by American Indians, might be considered a genre in their own right. Drawing heavily on such first-person testimonies, Exley (editor of Texas Tears, Texas Sunshine: Voices of Frontier Women) traces the Parker family's trajectory, from Elder John (born in 1758) to his great-grandson Quanah Parker, a Comanche war chief. This family had a particular impact on the development of Texas and the West and was especially determined to make a life there, despite the likelihood of violence.
