All Things Cherokee: Article - The Cherokee & the Twelve Texas Tribes

© Copyright Carla Toney. All rights reserved. The right of Carla Toney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this article may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Beothuk Books

The first Cherokee bands migrated to the Spanish Province of Texas and settled north of Nacogdoches in the winter of 1819-20.

One year later, in December 1820, Moses Austin, the first white American, reached San Antonio de Bexar, but it was not until January 1822 that the first white settlement was established in Texas, in what is now Washington County (Starr 1969:218).

As the territory of Texas was part of Mexico at the time, the Mexican government recognized the Cherokee as an agricultural tribe (Starr 1969:219) and accorded them full-fledged Mexican citizenship with all privileges (Starr 1969:218), along with the other Indians living in Texas with them.

After independence from Mexico, a treaty was begun on the 13th of November 1835 and concluded on the 23rd of February 1836. It was entitled the 'Treaty Between the Commissioners on Behalf of the Provisional Government of Texas and the Cherokee Indians and Twelve Associated Tribes'. The 'associate bands . . . residing in Texas' with the Cherokee were listed in the treaty: 'Shawnees, Delawares, Kickapoos, Quopaws, Choctaws, Bolupies, Jawanies, Alabomas, Cochaties, Caddoes of the Noches, Tahovcattokes and Unatuquouous' (Starr 1969:204).

The treaty was signed by the Commissioners of the Provisional Government, Sam Houston and John Forbes, and Sam Houston went on to become the first elected President of the Republic of Texas in September 1836. He held the presidency for two years, during which time Mirabeau B. Lamar held the office of Vice President.

Unfortunately, Sam Houston failed to get the treaty, which he had signed, ratified, and two years later in September 1838 Mirabeau B. Lamar was elected the second President of the Republic of Texas (Starr 1969:214).

Mirabeau B. Lamar had been private secretary to Governor Troupe of Georgia (Starr 1969:213) during the years 1831-1832, when the famous Cherokee Nation vs Georgia and Worcester vs. Georgia cases were tried by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It was during Governor Troupe's administration that the Cherokee were forced to abandon their homelands and remove to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. As the second elected President of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar initiated a campaign of extermination in Texas: a 'policy of exterminating all the Indians in Texas was adopted and . . . adhered to' (Starr 1969:213).

A letter dated 30 May 1839 (Starr 1969:214) from Lamar's Acting Secretary of State, David G. Burnet, to Richard G. Dunlap of the U.S. Department of State, referred to the Cherokee and their fellow Indians (who had lived in Texas prior to white settlement) as:

David G. Burnet then went on to mention, specifically, the 'Coshatties and Biloxies' who 'emigrated from the Creeks during the American Revolution' and who had lived in Texas 'too long . . . to be included in the list of intruders' (Starr 1969:217).

Burnet further stated: 'The Cherokees, Kickapoos, Delawares, Pottawotomies, Shawnees and Caddoes are the bands . . . of whom we complain. The Cherokees, Kickapoos and Caddoes are the most numerous and obnoxious of these' (Starr 1969:217).

Lamar and the Republic of Texas then implemented a policy of round up and attack.

While many of the Texas Cherokee joined their fellow Cherokees in what is now Oklahoma, the treaty concluded on the 23rd of February 1836 included twelve other tribes as well. From the treaty and David G. Burnet's letter, it is clear that there were peoples from the following tribes living with the Cherokee in Texas:

Mirabeau B. Lamar and the government of the Republic of Texas clearly tried to round them up to send them all to Oklahoma (or, alternatively, simply kill them).

A letter dated 11th of June 1840 from the Texan Secretary of War, B.T. Archer, to U.S. Brigadier General M. Arbuckle, B.T. Archer leads us to an interesting question.

The letter gives details of the process of round up and relocation. B.T. Archer stated: 'the Cherokee prisoners have been dispatched to the post most convenient to our command. An attempt to send them to Fort Towson would have been no less hazardous to them than their escort; our prisoners being exclusively women and children' (Starr 1969:222).

If the prisoners rounded up for relocation were 'exclusively women and children', whatever happened to the Cherokee men? Had they all gone on ahead to Oklahoma? Or had they gone elsewhere? And whatever happened to the other tribes with them?

Inivisible Indians by Carla Toney will appear soon on All Things Cherokee!