SIOONEY] TIIK SI'ANISH (JKAXT 143 



of tho Crook confoderaoy— wlio luid tixed their residence at the spot 

 wli('it> the town of Tahleqiuih was afterward established. They 

 rcinaiiR'il liorc until swcjit otf liy smallpox- some sixty years ago.' 



TllK TKXAS BAXD — 1817-1900 



As already stated, a hand of western Cherokee under Chief Bowl, 

 dissatisfied with the delay in fulfilling- the terms of the treaty of 1S17, 

 had left Arkansas and crossed Red river into Texas, then under 

 Mexican jurisdictii)n, where tlu'y 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 Cnited States, forming together a loose confederacy known after- 

 ward as "'the Cherokee and their associated hands,"" consisting of 

 Cherokee, Shawano, Delaware. Kickapoo, Quapaw, Choctaw, Biloxi, 

 '"lawanie" (Heyowani. Yowani). "■ rnataqua"" (Nada'ko or Ana- 

 darko. another Caddo subtrihe). "Tahookatookie"' (0, Alabama (a 

 Creek subtribe), and "Cooshatta"" (Koasa'ti. another Creek subtrihe). 

 The Cherokee being the larg(>st and most important })and, 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 countrv 

 and hopes were held out that a grant would be issued, but the papers 

 had not been perfected when the Texas revolution began." According 

 to the Cherokee statement the grant was actually issued and the Span- 

 ish document inclosed in a tin box was on the person of Bowl when he 

 was killed.'' On complaint of some of the American colonists in Texas 

 President Jackson issued a proclamation forbidding any Indians to 

 cross the Sabine river fi'om 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 

 "Fredonia 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 



' Author's personal information, ni 1891 the author opened two I'chee graves on the grounds of 

 Cornelius Boudinot, ill Tahlequah. finding with one body a number of Kreneh, Spanish, and .\meri- 

 can silver coins wrapped in eloth and dejiosited in two packages on each side of the head. They are 

 now in the National Museum at Washington. 



SBonnell, Topographic Description of Te.\as, p. Ill; Austin, 1840; Thrall, History of Texa.s. p. ,58; 

 New Vorlc, 187t;. 



^Author's personal information from .1. 1). Wafforcl and otherold Cherokee residents and from recent 

 Cherokee delegates. Bancroft agrees with Bonnell and Thrall that no grant was formally issued, 

 but states that the fHu'rokee 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 ami Texas, ii, p. 10;!, 18891. It is probable that the paper carried by Bowl was the later 

 Houston treaty. See next page. *Thrall, op. cit.,s, p. 58. 



