Alan LeMay, a novelist and occasional screenwriter, based his novel, The Searchers, on an actual incident that occurred in Texas, 1836. A nine-year-old white girl named Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches, Kiowas, and Caddoes. She was renamed Naduah, and eventually became the wife of the war chief of the Nocomi band. Recaptured in 1860, Naduah tried to return to her tribe but was held under guard and starved herself to death. Her son, Quanah Parker, became the last free war chief of the Comanches before surrendering his tribe in 1875.

Before it appeared as a novel, LeMay's short story was serialized for the Saturday Evening Post under the title, "The Avenging Texans", in the Fall of 1954. The story was published as a novel at the end of 1954, having been retitled The Searchers.

More than a few differences exist between the novel and the movie. In the novel, the hero is named Amos Edwards. According to film critic Edward Buscombe, the name was changed to avoid comic association with the popular radio show Amos 'n' Andy. (Ford scholars Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington speculate that Ethan Edwards is an amalgamation of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen and preacher Jonathan Edwards.) Other differences between the novel and the film: Amos is in love with his brother's wife, but she is not aware of it; Martin Pawley is not half-Indian; Amos does not have a mysterious or shady past; and instead of bringing Debbie home, Amos is killed by a Comanche woman during an attack on their camp. There are other differences as well, including the presence of two Indian villains, Scar and another chief named Bluebonnet.

The film script for The Searchers was written by Frank S. Nugent, a favorite screenwriter of Ford's who had previously penned seven of the director's films including Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Quiet Man (1952). In the biography Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman, Nugent's wife recalled that "my husband worked awfully hard on that movie...He loved it, he really did. And Ford needed to have the same people around him all the time, so he told Frank he had to write a part for Dobe Carey, and he had to write a part for Ken Curtis. But he didn't like Ken, so he told Frank, 'Don't make it too good.'" Financial backer C.V. Whitney underestimated director John Ford when he suggested that The Searchers would fare better at the box office with a change of title. Whitney felt that a new title such as The Searchers for Freedom would "dignify or broaden the story" and make it stand out from predictable western titles like The Indian Fighter (1955) or The Fastest Gun Alive (1956). Like most unsolicited advice, Ford ignored him.

By Scott McGee