Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet

by Frederick Marryat

The Cherokees, with a population of twenty-four thousand individuals; the Creeks, with twenty thousand, and the Choctaws, with fifteen, as soon as they reached their new country, applied themselves to agriculture, and as they possessed wealth, slaves, and cattle, their cotton plantations soon became the finest west from the Mississippi, and latterly all the cotton grown by the Americans and the Texians, within one hundred miles from the Indian settlements, has been brought up to their mills and presses, to be cleaned and put into bales, before it was shipped to New Orleans. Some years before the Independence of Texas, a small number of these Cherokees had settled as planters upon the Texian territory, where, by their good conduct and superior management of their farms, they had acquired great wealth, and had conciliated the good will of the warlike tribes of Indians around them, such as the Cushates, the Caddoes, and even the Comanches.

As soon as the Texians declared their independence, their rulers, thinking that no better population could exist in the northern districts than that of the Cherokees, invited a few hundred more to come from the Red River, and settle among them; and to engage them so to do, the first session of congress offered them a grant of two or three hundred thousand acres of land, to be selected by them in the district they would most prefer. Thus enticed, hundreds of wealthy Cherokee planters migrated to Texas, with their wealth and cattle. Such was the state of affairs until the presidency of Lamar, a man utterly unequal to the task of ruling over a new country.

Under his government, the Texians, no longer restrained by the energy and honourable feelings of an Austin or a Houston, followed the bent of their dispositions, and were guilty of acts of barbarism and cruelty which, had they, at the time, been properly represented to the civilised people of Europe, would have caused them to blot the name of Texas out of the list of nations.

I have already related the massacre of the Comanches in San Antonio, and the miserable pilfering expedition to Santa Fé, but these two acts had been preceded by one still more disgraceful.

The Cherokees, who had migrated to Texas, were flourishing in their new settlement, when the bankruptcy of the merchants in the United States was followed by that of the planters. The consequence was, that from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, hundreds of planters smuggled their negroes and other property into Texas, and as they dared not locate themselves too far west, from their dread of the Mexicans and Indians, they remained in the east country, upon the rivers of which only, at that time, navigation had been attempted.

These new comers, however, had to struggle with many difficulties; they had to clear the ground, to build bridges, to dry up mud-holes and swamps; and, moreover, they found that they could not enter into competition with the Cherokees, who having been established there for a longer time, and raising abundant crops of maize, cotton, and tobacco, were enabled to sell their provisions at one-half the price which the white planter wished to realise. The Europeans, of course, preferred to settle near the Cherokees, from whom they could obtain their Indian corn at fifty cents a bushel, while the American planters demanded two dollars and sometimes three. In a short time, the Cherokee district became thickly settled, possessing good roads, and bridges and ferries upon every muddy creek; in short, it was, in civilisation, full a century ahead of all the other eastern establishments of Texas.

The Texian planters from the United States represented to the government that they would have no chance of cultivating the country and building eastern cities, as long as the Cherokees were allowed to remain; and, moreover, they backed their petition with a clause showing that the minimum price the Cherokee land would be sold at to new comers from the United States was ten dollars an acre. This last argument prevailed, and in spite of the opposition of two or three honest men, the greedy legislators attacked the validity of the acts made during the former presidency; the Cherokees’ grant was recalled, and notice given to them that they should forth with give up their plantations and retire from Texas.

To this order, the Cherokees did not deign to give an answer, and, aware of the character of the Texians, they never attempted to appeal for justice; but, on the contrary, prepared themselves to defend their property from any invasion. Seeing them so determined, the Texians’ ardour cooled a little, and they offered the Indians twelve cents an acre for their land, which proposition was not attended to; and probably the Cherokees, from the fear which they inspired, would never have been molested had it not been for an act of the greatest cowardice on the part of the Texian government, and a most guilty indifference on that of the United States.

In Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas, labour had fallen so low, that thousands of individuals had abandoned their farms to become horse-thieves and negro smugglers. Many among them had gone to sell the produce of their depredations to the Cherokees, who not only did not condescend to deal with them, but punished them with rigour, subjecting them to their own code of laws. These ruffians nurtured plans of vengeance which they dared not themselves execute, but, knowing the greedy spirit of their countrymen, they spread the most incredible stories of Cherokee wealth and comforts. The plan succeeded well, for as soon as the altercation between the Texians and Cherokee Indians was made known to the Western States, several bands were immediately formed, who, in the expectation of a rich booty, entered Texas, and offered the Congress to drive away the Cherokees. As soon as this was known, representations were made by honourable men to the government of the United States, but no notice was taken, and the Western States, probably to get rid at once of the scum of their population, gave every encouragement to the expedition.

For a few months the Cherokees invariably discomfited their invaders, destroying their bands as soon as they were newly formed, and treating them as common robbers; but, being farmers, they could not fight and cultivate their ground at the same time, and they now thought of abandoning so unhospitable a land; the more so as, discovering that the Cherokees were more than a match for them in the field, a system of incendiarism and plunder was resorted to, which proved more disastrous to the Cherokees than the previous open warfare.