All Things Cherokee: Article

Hidden History
by Carla Toney

In 1839 the plight of the Cherokees was desperate (1).

Thousands had died on the Trail of Tears from the old Cherokee homeland in Georgia, and as the survivors, the 'Emigrants' as they were known, arrived in streams in the Indian Territory, Oklahoma, the Old Setters were hard pressed to feed even themselves. There were massive food shortages. People went hungry.

In Texas, 83 year-old Duwali (The Bowl, Chief Bowles) was shot in the head at close range by a Texas militiaman. The Texas militia burnt Cherokee homes, destroyed their crops, slaughtered their livestock. The Cherokee were scattered and living as fugitives in Texas. Others had fled to Mexico.

Some 1,500 Cherokee were removed to the Choctaw Reserve, but the Choctaws protested and the Cherokee had to move again.

But the Cherokee were not alone in Texas. In Texas, the Cherokee had been living with the 'associated bands' as well: Shawnee, Kickapoo, Delaware, Potawatomi, and remnant tribes from the Eastern Shore and Southeastern states who, caught between removal and extermination, had joined the Cherokee in Texas.

Antonio Martinez, the Spanish Governor of the Province of Texas had estimated 25,000 Cherokees, Choctaws, Miamis and Kickapoos were living in the Spanish Province of Texas.

In September 1823, Acting Governor Crittenden of Arkansas complained that there were 8,000 to 10,000 of the 'brethren' massed on the White River. These Shawnees, Kickapoos, Delawares, Piankeshaws, Potawatomies, and Senecas had made an alliance with the Cherokees and Red River Indians.

The Department of Nacogdoches estimated 4,500.

In the 1840s, the United States government feared war because of all the displaced southeastern tribes.

Duwali, before his death, had told Martin Lacey, Texas Indian agent, and John H. Reagan, a Nacog-doches militiaman, that he and John Ross had been 'corresponding for years on the possibility of moving the Cherokees to California'.

We know, from Emmet Starr, that Cherokees were numbered among the 'argonauts' who made the journey to California in the mid 1800s. That John Rollins Ridge eventually died in Grass Valley.

Further, in the 1840s Sequoyah (George Guess) went to visit relatives in Texas and warned the Texas Cherokee that they would not be welcome in the Indian Territory.

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists, Volume II (1850-1851) by Louis J. Rasmussen helps to provide some clue to the disappearance of hundreds, if not thousands, of Indians, caught between 'the fires' of removal and extermination.

In this volume, we find names such as Boudinot, Gold, Ruggles (Elias Boudinot married Harriet Ruggles Gold).

We find name clusters of John Bowles' and Sequoyah's descendents (Sequoyah's son married John Bowles' daughter): Foster, Downing, Toney, Bowles, Davis, Halfbreed (Breed), Lerblance (Larbox), Shay, Blythe.

And name clusters of Eastern Shore refugees and Tecumseh's allies: Bass, Brooke, Craddock (from Currituck), Francis, Norris, Watts, Canoe (Canno), McGilivray, Elliott, McKee.

Rich with the hidden history of the United States, San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists, Volume II (1850-1851) will be of interest to family historians and an essential resource tool for any college or university with a department of American Indian studies.

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Volume II (1850-1851) with 384 pages, is available from the Genealogical Publishing Company.

Carla Toney has specialized in the study of non-status Indians, tribal migrations and remnant communities.

An acclaimed author in Great Britain, she teaches University of Cambridge English examination classes at the University of Cooperative Education and the Volkshochschule in Karlsruhe, Germany.

For a copy of the above review with
academic references, please contact: beothukbooks@compuserve.de.

Bibliographical Sources

Everett, Dianna. The Texas Cherokees: A People Between Two Fires 1819-1840. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. 1990.

Rasmussen, Louis J. San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists, Volume II (1850-1851). Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co. 2002.

Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas's people: the Powhatan Indians of Virginia through four centuries. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. 1990.