| OCR Text |
Show MOONEY] THE SPANISH GRANT 143 of the Creek confederacy- who had fixed their residence at the spot where the town of Tahlequah was afterward established. They remained here until swept off by smallpox some sixty years ago.* THE TEXAS BAND- 1817- 1900 As already stated, a band of western Cherokee under Chief Bowl, dissatisfied with the delay in fulfilling the terms of the treaty of 1817, had left Arkansas and crossed Red river into Texas, then under Mexican jurisdiction, where they were joined a few years later by Tahchee and others of the western band who were opposed to the treaty of 1828. Here they united with other refugee Indians from the United States, forming together a loose confederacy known afterward as " the Cherokee and their associated bands," consisting of Cherokee, Shawano, Delaware, Kickapoo, Quapaw, Choctaw, Biloxi, " Iawanie" ( Heyowani, Yowani), " Unataqua" ( Nada'ko or Ana-darko, another Caddo subtribe), " Tahookatookie,? (?), Alabama ( a Creek subtribe), and " Cooshatta" ( Koasa'ti, another Creek subtribe). The Cherokee being the largest and most important band, their chief, Bowl- known to the whites as Colonel Bowles- was regarded as the chief and principal man of them all. The refugees settled chiefly along Angelina, Neches, and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas, where Bowl endeavored to obtain a grant of land for their use from the Mexican government. According to the Texan historians they were tacitly permitted to occupy the country and hopes were held out that a grant would be issued, but the papers had not been perfected when the Texas revolution began. 2 According to the Cherokee statement the grant was actually issued and the Spanish document inclosed in a tin box was on the person of Bowl when he was killed. 8 On complaint of some of the American colonists in Texas President Jackson issued a proclamation forbidding any Indians to cross the Sabine river from the United States.* In 1826- 27 a dissatisfied American colony in eastern Texas, under the leadership of Hayden Edwards, organized what was known as the uFredonia rebellion" against the Mexican government. To secure the alliance of the Cherokee and their confederates the Americans entered into a treaty by which the Indians were guaranteed the lands 1 Author's personal information. In 1891 the author opened two Uchee graves on the grounds of Cornelius Boudinot, at Tahlequah, finding with one body a number of French, Spanish, and American silver coins wrapped in cloth and deposited in two packages on each side of the head. They are now in the National Museum at Washington. * Bonnell, Topographic Description of Texas, p. 141; Austin, 1840; Thrall, History of Texas, p. 68; New York, 1876. 8 Author's personal information from J. D. Wafford and other old Cherokee residents and from recent Cherokee delegates. Bancroft agrees with Bonnell and Thrall that no grant was formally issued, but states that the Cherokee chief established his people in Texas " confiding in promises made to him, and a conditional agreement in 1822 " with the Spanish governor ( History of the North Mexican States and Texas, u, p. 103, 1889). It is probable that the paper carried by Bowl was the later Houston treaty. . See next page. 4Thrall, op. cit., s, p. 58. |
