I'm going to examine an historical chess game, part of which occurred in the place of my birth just under two hundred years ago and has expanded far beyond the borders of Texas in terms of its effects. But after having just read Dianna Everett’s excellent book, The Texas Cherokees, touted by William G. McLoughlin as “probably the definitive study of the Texas Cherokee,” I'm going to shine my light on the backgrounds and doings of some of the non-native people who populate the story of the Texas Cherokee with the exception of Cherokee Chief Bowles and Cherokee Richard Fields.
For the reason that many such persons are not mentioned in Dianna’s excellent book and that in my opinion, the learned ethnohistorian limited her focus to the pawns and knights. While doing an admirable job of describing the board in a situational sense, she neglected describing the backgrounds, aspirations, affiliations and abilities of the many of the other pieces of the first rank. I will attempt to outline some of them here. Maybe, by their style of play, their choice of gambits and their tempo we may begin to guess at the identities and antiquity of the actual Masters engaged in the larger contest. I will preface that the Cherokee were the pawns in my conception of this analogy. But pawns may be “queened” if allowed a mere six moves unmolested. Don't forget that as you read.
We are told by Academia that ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of a philosophical standpoint. Ethnographic studies nonetheless need to be evaluated in some manner. While there is no consensus on evaluation standards, Laurel Richardson of Ohio State University in the article, Evaluating Ethnography (2000) provides five criteria that ethnographers might find helpful.
1. Substantive Contribution: "Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social-life?"
2. Aesthetic Merit: "Does this piece succeed aesthetically?"
3. Reflexivity: "How did the author come to write this text. Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?"
4. Impact: "Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually? Does it move me?”
5. Expresses a Reality: "Does it seem 'true'—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual or communal sense of the 'real'?"
According to Norman K. Denzin, the following eight principles should be considered when observing, recording and sampling data:
1. The groups should combine symbolic meanings with patterns of interaction.
2. Observe the world from the point of view of the subject, while maintaining the distinction between everyday and scientific perceptions of reality.
3. Link the group's symbols and their meanings with the social relationships.
4. Record all behaviour.
5. Methodology should highlight phases of process, change and stability.
6.The act should be a type of symbolic interactionism.
7.Use concepts that would avoid casual explanations.
There is a tale of a man who brought a Bible to a white trader in Cherokee territory. He asked the trader to translate it into Cherokee and give it to the head men of the Cherokee to read. The trader did so. When the missionary returned several years later to the trading post, he inquired as to the response of the Cherokee to the Bible. The trader told him that they thought the first part, the Old Testament was a very strange war story of a very strange people. The second part, the New Testament, they had been very impressed with. They thought the Jesus character was for the most part a very wise teacher, a peaceful warrior and a brave man. Upon finishing the Bible, the Chief had asked the trader why white people didn’t follow what Jesus said.
It would be well for all to remember that the people we study in history books and “in the field” have been and are yet studying us. As for this writer in answer to the third criteria, that of “reflexivity” I will point out that I had blood on both sides of this struggle and that has taught me not to hate but rather to learn, to understand and finally to remember. Keep in mind that men are men and must be appraised on the quality of their deeds rather than the quantity their words.
Being a Texas Cherokee was and is a complicated thing. Feelings run deep, written records are scarce and there were many personal agendas at play in the region. Cherokee blood has been well-mixed for over four hundred years. My maternal grandmother is my Cherokee connection. When she told me as a child of this part of my heritage, I embarked on a quest of learning that is far from over as I write.
My mother, my maternal grandmother, my maternal great-grandmother and maternal great-grandfather were all born in Texas, as I was myself. My Texas grandmother is also my connection to the other side of the contest that occurred in the early days of Texas between the Mexicans, the Anglo settlers and the Cherokee. We are related to a man named Edward Burleson, who you will learn about in this essay. For these reasons I feel both entitled, encouraged and compelled to ponder Texas history.
I will begin with an account of the life and death of the Texas Cherokee Chief Bowles from a Cherokee perspective.
Chief Bowles or Duwa'li, was born in North Carolina circa 1756. He had auburn hair, blue eyes and was a half-blood Scotch-Cherokee. It is said that settlers from North Carolina killed his father when he was fourteen years old. It is also said that the boy killed the murderers of his father. Bowles became the chief of the town of Running Water, Tennessee when he was thirty two.
In June 1794, some boats were sailing down the Tennessee River. William Scott and a man named Stewart wanted to do some business. They invited Bowles and some others on board their boat and gave them whisky. The Cherokee bought things for very high prices until their money was gone. After they were sober, they realized that they had been cheated. Bowles then returned all of the merchandise and tried to get the money back. He was sent ashore.
He took two warriors with him and tried again. He warned the traders that they must fight or return the money. Stewart and Scott killed one warrior. Bowles escaped but returned and killed all the white men on the boat. Bowles was afraid because the Cherokee had a treaty with the Americans. Bowles and his warriors sailed down the Tennessee River, the Ohio River, and the Mississippi River in the captured boat. Then they sailed up the Saint Francis River to Missouri.
The Cherokee in Tennessee told the American government that they would help to find and to arrest Bowles. When Bowles learned of this, he decided to stay in Missouri. Many more Cherokee came to live with him. After the American government investigated, they said that Bowles was justified in what he did. Chief Bowles and his people lived in the valley of the Saint Francis River until 1811, when a violent earthquake happened The people thought that the Great Spirit was warning them to move.
Many of them moved to Arkansas and one third of the Eastern Cherokee were living west of the Mississippi River by 1813. Chief Bowles and his followers travelled south into Mexican territory. Many other people had also left their homelands to escape the European invasion. Alabama, Biloxi, Caddo, Choctaw, Cushatta, Delaware, Ioni, Kichia, Kickapoo, Mataquo, Shawnee, Tahocullake, Taovaya, Tawakoni, Quapaw, and Waco people formed an alliance with the Cherokee.
Bowles and six other chiefs obtained a grant to 1.5 million acres of land from the Mexican government. Some European settlers wanted to lead a revolution and make a new republic out of this northern part of Mexico. It was the second time this had occurred and the second time the Cherokee had been called upon to help. The Cherokee warriors fought the Apache and the Comanche to the West. This enabled the revolutionaries to fight the Mexican Army in the South. That second revolution was a success and the Republic of Texas was born. In return for their help, the Cherokee land was guaranteed by Sam Houston, the future President of the Republic of Texas.
He promised that a new land title would be made. The document sat on his desk for a year and it was never ratified. When Mirabeau B. Lamar became the second president of the Republic, he refused to honour Houston's agreement. He tore up the paper. Lamar then sent a decree of expulsion to the chiefs. He had used the same tactics in Georgia when he was Governor there. Chief Bowles asked his people if they wanted to fight to hold their land. They decided to fight. Secretary of War of the Republic of Texas, Albert Sydney Johnston and General Thomas J. Rusk were sent to enforce the decree. The Battle of the Neches began on July 15, 1839. The Republic of Texas Militia burned a Delaware village and then attacked the other people. Approximately eight hundred men, women and children were slaughtered.
On July 16, Chief Bowles was shot in the leg and his horse was wounded. The Chief began to walk on the battle field. He was shot in the back. The chief sat down and faced the Texas Militia. He began to sing a death chant. The captain of the militia approached, placed a pistol to his head and killed him. Bowles was 83 years old. Some people cut long pieces of skin from his corpse. These were used to make souvenir reins. His body was left unburied.
On July 16th, 1839, a dream of cultural and religious freedom ended in a bloody massacre. President Lamar made a speech before the Republic of Texas Legislature and declared that "eastern Texas is now free of all Indians." European settlers were encouraged to move onto the vacant farms. The survivors scattered. Some went to Mexico, some went to Oklahoma and others hid in the forests of eastern Texas. Those who remained in the Republic of Texas had to conceal their heritage to escape persecution and death.
A marker stands at the site of the battleground. On July 16 1995, in Cherokee County, Texas, near the town of Tyler, descendants of those tribes and their friends had a funeral service for Chief Bowles. 156 years after his death. Also to remember the other lives that were lost in the battle. The site was purchased in 1997 by the American Indian Heritage Center of Texas. The place of the massacre is sacred. Blood and tear-drops have stained the soil. The spirits of the vanquished linger.
Thus, a band of Cherokee following Chief Bowles kept moving farther east from Tennessee to Missouri to Arkansas and finally to what is today the state of Texas. At the time they went it was a province of Spanish Mexico. Concurrently, colonies of American empresarios moved into the same province. There were also local nomadic indigenous peoples, Creoles, refugees, opportunists and fugitive criminals passing through. Remnants of many other displaced and now homeless tribes followed Bowles or were welcomed by him.
He and other leading men of the Cherokee tried to play by the rules of civilization and to secure the all important title papers to any land that they wished to occupy. It mattered not if they were treating with a Spaniard, a Mexican, an American, a Frenchman, a Jew or an Englishman. Various governments, provisional governments and important individuals on various sides of the contested area made overtures, promises and treaties. Some documents were nullified and others were never ratified.
In practical terms, each of the non-native parties involved saw an advantage to using the Texas Cherokee for their own security as there were several nomadic indigenous peoples in the area who still lived by warfare and the chase such as the Quohadi Comanche and Lipan Apache, in stark contrast to the Cherokee who were already farming corn, livestock and cotton, spinning cloth and were also literate with their own recently invented Syllabary.
The Mexican politicians desired a buffer to keep out new incursions of opportunistic American land grabbers. The Americans, the Anglo-American Mexican Colonists and the Mexicans saw the usefulness of having a human buffer against the nomadic raiding tribes. For a time, that is. Being aboriginal eventually barred the Cherokee from obtaining the necessary travel documents and passports needed to go to the provincial and national capitols of Mexico and conduct their business.
That is why some of the non-native people that history tells us were leaders of the Cherokee went on those types of missions. After scrutinizing the stories of some of those couriers, I find it hard to completely trust their motives or to accept that they were fully authorized to represent the Cherokee as a whole. I wonder at their sometimes questionable methods and I am inclined to speculate on who their true employers and deepest motives might have been as there was unprecedented amounts of land being won and lost on a daily basis.
Not long after the Republic of Texas won its independence from Mexico, a military contingent was dispatched to the Texas Cherokee and associated bands to inform them of their imminent removal. A few short talks were held and the negotiations arrived at a promised cash compensation for the crops sown, improvements made, buildings and chattel. It was made clear, even as several contingents of Texian soldiers were drawing closer to cut off any escape, that there was no choice about leaving, they would be forcibly ejected.
In the last parlay held, it was demanded that the Cherokee warriors take off their gun-locks and give them to the Texians. After being escorted across the border of the Republic these would be returned. Bowles said that he had walked freely into Coahuila y Tejas and that he would walk out the same way. He declined the escort. The Texians demanded it. Bowles said he would have to talk to his other men first as the disarming provision had not ever been mentioned in the earlier talks and agreements that those others had attended.
The Texians demanded that he sign a removal document on behalf of those not present and Bowles said that he would not do this, to his credit. He sent a message to the Republic of Texas Commissioners that he would gather all the men needed to consider the final document in two days time. The reply was that the Republic of Texas Army was even at that moment marching on Bowles’ villages and that anyone not waving a white flag would be considered hostile.
By the time the Texian returned from delivering that message, the Cherokee village was deserted and the Battle of the Neches was well underway. It is said that the Cherokee began firing first and that they lost eighteen men. There were two casualties recorded among the Texians. The next morning, a force of Cherokee together with Delaware, Kickapoo and Shawnee engaged the Commander of the Frontier Regiment Edward Burleson and General Thomas J. Rusk’s men at the headwaters of the Neches River. The Texians burned the village of the Delaware and after two charges, they won the day.
Now, we will examine my relative, Edward Burleson. He was a soldier and a statesman and the son of Capt. James and Elizabeth (Shipman) Burleson. He was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina on December 15, 1798. He served as a private in the War of 1812 in his father's company, a part of Perkin's Regiment of Alabama. He married Sarah Griffin Owen on April 25, 1816 in Madison County, Missouri Territory. They had nine children. On October 20, 1817 Burleson was appointed a Captain of Militia in Howard County, Missouri. He was commissioned Colonel on June 13, 1821 in Saline County and was Colonel of Militia from 1823 to 1830 in Hardeman County, Tennessee.
He arrived in Coahuila y Tejas on May 1, 1830 and applied for land in March 1831. Title was issued on April 4, 1831. On August 11, 1832 he was a member of the ayuntamiento at San Felipe de Austin. On December 7, 1832 he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the Militia of Austin Municipality. In 1833 he was elected a delegate to the Second Convention in Mina. From 1830 to 1842, he defended settlers in numerous engagements with hostile Indians.
On May 17, 1835 in Bastrop he was elected to the Committee of Safety and was therefore unable to attend the Consultation of 1835 although he had been elected a delegate. On October 10, 1835 in Gonzales he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the Infantry in Gen. Stephen F. Austin's Army. On November 24, 1835 Burleson became General of the Volunteer Army and replaced Austin. On November 26, 1835 he fought in the Grass Fight during the siege of Béxar. His father was also active in this battle which was won by the Texians.
On December 1, 1835 Burleson was commissioned Commander in Chief of the Volunteer Army by the Provisional Government. On December 6 he entered Béxar and together with Benjamin R. Milam, wrote a report to the Provisional Government. On December 14, 1835 he reported on the success at Béxar to the Provisional Governor, Henry Smith. The Volunteer Army disbanded on December 20, 1835. Burleson raised a company and rode to Gonzales in February 1836. By March 10, in Gonzales he was officially elected Colonel of the Infantry, First Regiment.
On April 19 1836, General Sam Houston addressed his troops, "This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. It is the only chance of saving Texas. From time to time I have looked for reinforcements in vain: We will only have about seven hundred men to march with besides the camp guard. We go to conquer. It is wisdom growing out of necessity to meet the enemy. Now every consideration enforces it. The troops are in fine spirits and now is the time for action. We shall use our best efforts to fight the enemy to such advantage as will insure victory though the odds are greatly against us. I leave the result in the hands of a wise God and rely upon his providence. My country will do justice to those who serve her. The rights for which we fight will be secure and Texas Free!"
After those words, General Sam Houston and his small Texas army retreated Eastward ahead of the Mexican army. Avowing to avenge the cold-blooded murder of their countrymen at the Alamo and Goliad, his troops were becoming increasingly impatient and wanted to stop and fight. However, against popular opinion and wishes, Houston had a plan. He marched his men down Buffalo Bayou to within a half a mile of where it joined the San Jacinto River.
There the army prepared their defences on the edge of a grove of trees. Their rear was protected by timber and the bayou, while before them was an open prairie. While retreating, General Houston had manoeuvred his men into the position he desired and allowed Santa Anna to pursue them right into the jaws of a very clever trap.
The following morning about 10 a. m., April 20, 1836, Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna came marching across the prairie in battle array. A volley from the Texian's "Twin Sisters" artillery brought him to a sudden halt. Falling back to a clump of trees a quarter of a mile distant, Santa Anna formed a line of battle. Colonel Sidney Sherman, at the head of the Texas Cavalry, charged the Mexican Army but accomplished little more than inspiring the Texans with fresh enthusiasm for the following day. The first shot of the Battle of San Jacinto had been fired. It had only been a skirmish thus far but General Houston was satisfied with the results. The fate of Texas hung in the balance and the weight of justice was on the side of Texas.
The 21st of April dawned bright and beautiful. The main forces of the Texas Army were there, totalling about seven hundred and fifty men. They faced over fifteen hundred Mexican troops. The Mexican soldiers felt very secure and full of pride after their massacre of the Texas Army at the Alamo and again at Goliad. They were well blooded and had been burning towns and killing Texans on their way East during the previous few weeks.
Early that morning, General Houston sent Deaf Smith with two or three men to destroy Vince's Bridge over which the Mexican Army had passed, thus cutting off the only available escape route for the Mexicans. General Houston held off his attack until about four o'clock that afternoon. Not only would the Western sun be shining directly in the enemy's face but most of the Mexican Officers were having their afternoon siesta.
General Santa Anna was in his tent with Emily West. Emily was a beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated mulatto slave girl that the Mexican General had picked up along his route. Emily later became known in song as the “Yellow Rose of Texas” for her part in keeping the General's mind off of the Texas Army.
The Mexican soldiers had began preparing their evening meal and were completely surprised by the rallying cry, "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" and the Texas Army rushing forward with relentless fury upon the breastworks of the Mexicans. At the head of the centre column rode General Sam Houston. Edward Burleson commanded the First Regiment which was placed opposite Mexican breastworks and was the first Regiment to charge. The Mexican Army was drawn up in perfect order but the Texians rushed without firing.
As they approached the breastworks, the Mexicans greeted them with a shower of lead, which went over their heads. General Sam Houston was badly wounded but the Texians continued rushing forward. Each man reserved his fire until he could choose a target, then before the Mexicans could reload, the Texians discharged their rifles. Without bayonets, the Texians converted their rifles into war clubs and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle all along the breastworks took place.
When the Texians had broken off their rifles at the breech, they flung the remains at their enemies and drew their pistols to continue the slaughter. When their pistols were emptied, they drew their Bowie knives and continued to fight until victory was achieved. Twenty minutes after the initial charge, the battle was over and six hundred and thirty Mexican soldiers were dead, two hundred and eight were wounded and seven hundred and thirty had been taken prisoner. Only three Texians lost their lives in the fight, thirty-four were wounded, six of those, mortally so. The Battle for Texas had been won. My relative, Edward Burleson accepted the sword and surrender of Mexican General Juan N. Almonte.
The story of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s capture was best told by Captain Creed Taylor, one of the DeWitt Colonist who fought in the Texas Army from Gonzales to San Jacinto, who became a Texas Ranger and later fought in the Mexican War with Zachary Taylor.
"The scouting party was led by Col. Sgt. James A. Sylvester, the gallant young man who bore the "Liberty or Death" flag through the Battle of San Jacinto, the only flag flown on the field by the Texians that day. His men were Joel W. Robinson, A. H. Miles, Charles P. Thompson, Joseph Vermillion and Sion R. Bostick.”
“General Santa Anna was discovered crouching in the tall grass along a small hollow. He was first sighted by Jim Sylvester who suddenly rode upon the fugitive. The General had on a Corporal's uniform and was barefooted. Sylvester signalled his men who were scattered as far as four or five hundred yards away. They came dashing up flourishing their guns and Santa Anna became excited. At that moment that he gave the Masonic sign of distress. Sylvester and Robinson were both Masons and understood the signs, which undoubtedly was the reason the general was not killed on the spot.”
“The captive was ordered to march ahead on foot toward the camp but soon he stopped and declared that because of his bare blistered feet he could go no further. Whereupon Miles drew his gun and threatened to fire if he didn't "step along lively." They proceeded some half a mile when the prisoner suddenly stopped and said: "Señor, I cannot walk barefooted any further, even though you kill me." Several of the boys levelled their guns and were ready to shoot, when Robinson spoke up, saying, "Don't kill the poor fellow." He then reached down, took the hand of the prisoner and said, "Get up behind me."
“As the party approached General Houston's headquarters, which was under a large live-oak tree, I hailed Bostick and asked: "Si! Who have you got there?" "Don't know Creed, but we think he's a big buck." This was only a few paces from the "dead line" where the Mexican prisoners were being guarded. No sooner had Bostick spoken than I saw several of the prisoners salute and heard them say, "Es el Presidente! Es nuestro General!" (It is the President! It is our general!)”
“Hearing this I hastened to headquarters and I saw and heard everything that occurred in that great moment of our country's history. On reaching headquarters the captive quickly slid down from the horse and was immediately led to Houston. General Almonte was the first man to approach him and at once introduced him to General Houston, who, owing to his wound, did not rise to his feet, but did rise to a sitting posture and very cordially extended his hand which Santa Anna grasped as if it were that of an old friend. I could not see that Santa Anna was unduly excited, though he appeared quite serious. He bore himself with an air of a fearless, I might say, defiant-man, although at that moment the boys with fury depicted in their faces, were gathering from every quarter and it was with an effort that the guards held them back.”
“I cannot recall all the conversation between the two generals; but that interview is of record, and a matter of familiar history. I do remember that Santa Anna did not appear "shaky," nor did he ask for an opiate. Meanwhile the crowd continued to gather and threats, in an undertone, were heard on every side and I believe that Santa Anna's being a Free Mason was all that saved him on that day.”
“Houston, Sherman and many others of our officers were Masons and while a number of them doubtless favoured the execution of the red-banded monster, yet they were bound to observe their Masonic obligations. I offer this, however, as my opinion and this idea prevailed generally among the men. Comrade Bostick stood near Santa Anna as if still guarding the captive, watching every movement and listening attentively to all that was said.”
"Something seemed to give Santa Anna confidence all at once," said Bostick and I know now what it was. He and Houston were both Free Masons and the prisoner made the sign of distress, which Houston, as a Mason, heeded. I was told that at the time by one of our men, who was a Mason also and I am now certain it was the strong tie of fraternal brotherhood that saved Santa Anna's life."
From July 12 to December 1836, Edward Burleson was Colonel of the Frontier Rangers. In 1837 he surveyed and laid out roads to Bastrop, La Grange and other Central Republic of Texas places. On June 12, 1837 he became Brigadier General of the Militia established by the First Congress of the Republic of Texas. As a representative of the Second Congress from September 26, 1837 to May 1838, Burleson served on the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, the Committee on Military Affairs and the Committee of Indian Affairs of which he was Chairman.
In 1838 he was Colonel of the First Regiment of Infantry in the new Regular Army and on April 4, 1838, defeated Mexican insurrectionists under Vicente Córdova. In the spring of that year Burleson laid out the town of Waterloo, the original settlement of the city of Austin. He was elected to the Senate of the Third Congress but resigned on January 19, 1839 at President Mirabeau B. Lamar's request to take command of the Frontier Regiment. On May 22, 1839, Burleson intercepted a Córdova agent with ‘proof’ that Mexico had made allies of Cherokee and other Indians. He defeated the Cherokee under Chief Bowles in July 1839.
On October 17, 1839, Burleson was in command of the ceremonies establishing Austin as the capital of the Republic of Texas. He defeated the Cherokee survivors of the Battle of the Neches on Christmas Day, 1839 at Pecan Bayou, killing Chief Bowles' son John and another chief known as The Egg. Burleson sent Chief Bowles' hat to Sam Houston who was enraged. On August 12, 1840, Burleson defeated the Comanche in the Battle of Plum Creek.
In 1841 he was elected Vice President of the Republic of Texas. In the spring of 1842, when the Mexican Army under Rafael Vásquez invaded the Republic of Texas, Burleson met with volunteers at San Antonio, where they elected him to command. Sam Houston sent Alexander Somervell to take over and Burleson handed the command to him. Burleson then made his famous speech before the Alamo, "Though Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, the Alamo had none.
In the fall of 1842, Mexican General Adrián Woll invaded the Republic of Texas. Burleson raised troops for defence and again yielded the command to General Somervell, who was sent by Sam Houston. In 1844 Burleson made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency against Anson Jones. In December 1845 he was elected Senator from the Fifteenth District to the First Legislature of the State of Texas. He was unanimously elected President pro tem.
During the Mexican War, Burleson and Governor James P. Henderson went to Monterrey, Nuevo León. Burleson was appointed Senior aide-de-camp, held the rank of Major and served as a spy during the siege of Monterrey and at Buena Vista. In 1848 Burleson introduced a resolution to establish Hays County and donated the land for its courthouse. He chaired the Committee on Military Affairs, which awarded a $1,250,000 grant to the State of Texas for Indian depredations. In March 1851 Burleson, Eli T. Merriman and William Lindsey surveyed and laid out the town of San Marcos.
Burleson died of pneumonia on December 26, 1851 in Austin, while serving as Senator from the Twenty-first District. He was still President pro tem. He was given a Masonic burial at the site of the future State Cemetery, the land for which was purchased by the State of Texas in his honour in 1854. Burleson was of the Methodist faith.
I knew from childhood that the Cherokee were not indigenous to Texas. They hailed from farther East in the Smokey Mountain region. Some scholars I have read hold theories (based on the peculiar way Cherokee basketry is finished on the rims and the type of materials employed, such as hickory strips) that rather than coming from Asia over a land-bridge during an Ice Age, they may have travelled north from deep in the Orinoco River basin in South America.
There are records, written and verbal in the cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes of the coming of a people from the south, who were warred upon and driven back to the accepted home region of the Cherokee. Other investigators concluded the same scenario based on studies of the peculiarities of the Cherokee language and its dissimilarity to other aboriginal tongues of North America.
Much mystery right out of the gate. It became popular in the nineteenth century to theorize that the Cherokee in particular but not exclusively, were remnants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. That theory still has many adherents among Jews, aboriginals and others today. It is part of a larger theory that encompasses people in Africa and Asia who are said to also be descended from the Lost Tribes.
These speculations are a fascinating study. As in the case of the Gypsies, the tongues, arts, customs and genes of a wandering people may always be discerned if one knows what to look for. It must always be born in mind that at the head of many theories are documents written after the fact, which may conflict with other documents of equal age and veracity.
With this in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Mordecai M. Noah. He was the author of fascinating theories of the Jewishness of some Native Americans. He proposed that the Canaanites came to the Americas first before the ancestors of the Indigenous Peoples.
Here is a quote from his pamphlet, Discourse of the Evidence of the American Indians being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israël, published two years prior to the Battle of the Neches.
“They were the Canaanites, the scriptural Titans, who, according to the sacred historian; built cities with walls and towers reaching to the heavens. The builders of the tower of Babel, the family of the shepherd kings who conquered Egypt, and built the pyramids, and were driven from Syria by Joshua. The men, who finally founded Tyre and Carthage, navigated round the continent of Africa, and sailed in their small craft across the Atlantic, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“The Phoenicians were the founders of Palenque, Mitlan, Papantla, Quemada, Cholula, Chila and Antiquerra. When I studied the history of these people, on the ruins of Carthage, it was said by antiquarians present, that the Carthaginians had a colony at a considerable distance, which they secretly maintained; and when I was at Tangiers, the Mauritania Tangitania of the ancients, I was shown the spot where the pillar was erected, and was standing in the time of Ibnu, the Moorish historian, on which was inscribed, in the Phoenician language -- "We are the Canaanites who fled from Joshua, the son of Nun, that notorious robber."
“From that spot, then... the pillars of Hercules, now known as the straits of Gibraltar, they crossed to our continent, and founded a great empire of the Ophite worship, with Syrian and Egyptian symbols. Now, mark the issue. Fifteen hundred years after the expulsion of the Canaanites by Joshua, the ten tribes pass over the straits of Behring to the continent of America, and poured down upon these people like the Goths and Vandals. The descendants of Joshua a second time fell on the Canaanites on another continent, knowing them well as such, and burn their temples; and destroy their gigantic towers and cities.”
Mordecai owned newspapers in New York such as The National Advertiser, The New York Enquirer merged into the New York Courier and Enquirer, The Evening Star and The Sunday Times. He bought land on Grand Island in the Niagara River and created a refuge for Jews, which he called Ararat.
On September 2, 1825, soon after arriving in Buffalo from New York, thousands of Christians and a smattering of Jews assembled for a historic event. Noah led a large procession headed by Masons, a New York Militia company and municipal leaders to St. Paul's Episcopal Church. There was a brief ceremony including a singing of the Psalms in Hebrew. The cornerstone was laid on the communion table and was inscribed, “Ararat, a City of Refuge for the Jews, founded by Mordecai M. Noah in the Month of Tishri, 5586 (September, 1825) and in the Fiftieth Year of American Independence.” The proclamation establishing the refuge was read aloud.
The day ended with music, cannonade and libation. Twenty-four guns, a recessional, all Masons retiring to the Eagle Tavern. No one ever set foot on Grand Isle. Mordecai returned to New York without himself setting foot on the island. The cornerstone was eventually taken out of the audience chamber of the church and laid against the back of the building. It is now on permanent display at the Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, NY.
So, we have a man who owned four newspapers looking for a refuge for his people. Mordecai turned down a Consulship to Riga offered him by President James Madison in 1811. Two years later he accepted an appointment as Consul to the Kingdom of Tunis. After two years in that office, he was fired on the grounds that, in the words of James Monroe, his religion was "an obstacle to the exercise of Consular function."
Another man, John Howard Payne, subscribed to this theory of the Lost Tribes. Payne is famous mostly for a song that he wrote the lyrics to, called, Home Sweet Home. His maternal grandfather, Aaron Isaacs was said to have come from Hamburg, Germany. He spent time in New York City and was listed as a member of Temple Shearth Israel in 1748. He was a merchant who shipped goods on consignment between Long Island and Connecticut and was also employed as a courier during the American Revolution.
Payne was appointed Consul to Tunis by President John Tyler in 1842, twenty-seven years after Mordecai left that same posting. He served for ten years. He was buried in Tunisia, disinterred in 1883, brought to New York and re-buried in Washington, DC. In 1836 he went to visit John Ross, the Cherokee Chief who opposed the Removal Policy of the USA. He also visited Major Ridge, the Cherokee leader who supported the Removal Policy. Payne’s travels around the Southland were declared to be for the purposes of canvassing subscriptions and literary materials for a new weekly magazine he proposed to call Jam Jehan Nima or The World From The Inside Of A Bowl.
He stayed for quite some time with Ross and compiled much information on the customs of the Cherokee tribe. He also transcribed the official Cherokee records. He and Ross were jailed by the Georgia Guard and then released after Major Ridge nobly intervened on their behalf. Payne wrote letters that were published in newspapers and some of those were presented in such a way that the readers were led to believe that they spoke for all Cherokee people, which of course wasn't the case. This incensed many people, both white and Cherokee.
The notes he made as to the customs and traditions of the Cherokee were held privately until just a few years ago. I purchased The Payne-Butrick Papers Volumes I-VI and read both thick volumes. They appear to me to be wholly concerned with finding similarities between Cherokee customs and ancient Judaic customs in order to support Mordecai Noah’s theory. There is no way to ascertain if they are accurate and I am puzzled why they were held unpublished in a private collection for over one hundred and fifty years.
Payne was educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York. One of his contemporary classmates was a man named John F. Schermerhorn. Schermerhorn was sent on a mission by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. That Society was chartered by King William III in 1701. John's report to the Trustees of the Missionary Society of Connecticut was published in pamphlet form in Hartford in 1814 and was entitled: A Correct View of that Part of the United States which lies West of the Allegheny Mountains with regard to Religion & Morals; by John F. Schermerhorn and Samuel J. Mills.
In 1832, President Andrew Jackson appointed Schermerhorn to a Commission dedicated to the removal of the Cherokee and Chickasaw beyond the Mississippi River, which became known as the Trail of Tears. While acting as Indian Commissioner, Schermerhorn acquired about four hundred thousand acres of land in Highland, Grayson, Bath and Wythe Counties in Virginia.
He and Payne met each other in Cherokee country during the time he was trying to secure a Removal Treaty. Payne was lobbying for the Anti-Removal Ross Party and that placed the two schoolmates squarely and a little too obviously opposite each other. That old Hegelian dialectic that we are confronted with down through all of history clearly shows its footprint here to me. Hegel himself is quoted as saying, “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Similar to those indicated in my essay on the Philippines, this in my view, is yet another historical archetype.
Payne had some friends of interest worthy of examination. Two such were the Colt brothers of Hartford, Connecticut. Samuel Colt made repeating pistols and achieved wealth and fame by founding the Colt's Manufacturing Company. His brother, John C. was an authority on double entry book keeping.
John C. Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His father was Christopher Colt, a farmer who had moved his family to Hartford when he changed professions and became a businessman. His mother, Sarah Colt (née Caldwell) died of tuberculosis when Colt was eleven years old. The children were cared for by Christopher's sister, Lucretia Colt Price until Christopher Colt remarried two years later to Olivia Sargeant. The new Colt family included seven siblings: four boys and three girls. The eldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis two years after Colt re-married and another daughter died in childhood.
Olivia had three children by Chris Colt and had little time for her step-children. Colt's father sent him to Hopkins Academy when he was nine years old but removed him after a year as Young John was constantly in trouble. After his father lost a fortune in the economic Panic of 1819, Olivia insisted that the step-children be put to work rather than receive educations. Thus, the Colt brothers became strongly attached to their one remaining full sister, Sarah Ann, who acted as their surrogate mother until she was sent away to work as a menial. John was known to keep locks of her and Margaret's hair throughout his life.
Colt worked as an assistant book keeper at age fourteen for the Union Manufacturing Company in Marlborough, Connecticut. He left that job and moved to Albany, New York in less than a year. He went to Hartford in 1826 and studied at an academy for three months.
In 1827 he worked as a math teacher at a ladies Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland for a year and in 1828 became a supervisory engineer for a canal near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1829 his sister Sarah Ann committed suicide by taking arsenic. One newspaper stated that it was due to a fight with her step-mother. Another said that she "took a morbid view of her doom to labour until her fortitude and her mind gave way.
Devastated, John vowed to "leave the country and pass the rest of his days in some foreign land". He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. His orders were for a Mediterranean cruise on the USS Constitution but illness prevented him from serving on the ship so he worked as a clerk in Norfolk, Virginia for a Colonel Anderson.
Colt spent only three months as a Marine before becoming disillusioned with military life. Clerking in a humid port was not the adventurous life that he had envisioned. He was still very ill but not enough so to obtain a medical discharge, so he forged a letter in the name of George Hamilton, a fictitious farmer from Ware, Massachusetts. The letter stated that his underage son had falsely enlisted under the name of John Colt. He mailed the letter to his brother James who mailed it to Colonel Anderson from Ware. Anderson discharged Colt within days of receiving the letter, citing Colt's illness as the reason and not the fraudulently claimed fraudulent enlistment. Upon his discharge, John Colt spent a year as a law clerk for his cousin, Dudley Selden.
Dudley Selden was born in 1794 and died November 7, 1855 in Paris, France. Dudley was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was a son of Joseph Dudley Selden and Ethelinda Colt. He married Mary Augusta Packard and had a daughter, Maria Louisa Selden who married William Rogers Morgan. Selden graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York in 1819, the year of an economic Panic in the USA. This college was the same institution that John Howard Payne and Schermerhorn had both attended.
He studied law and was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of his profession in New York City in 1831. He was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1831. Selden was elected as a Jacksonian to the 23rd United States Congress and served from March 4, 1833, to July 1, 1834, when he resigned. He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
At the same time as he clerked for his cousin Dudley Selden, John Colt became a river boat gambler and was challenged to a duel over a shared mistress. Although the men never fought the duel, the incident became part of Colt's backstory as a street fighting gambler.
He travelled to Vermont in 1830 as a debate coach for the University of Vermont at Burlington but he left after only a year due to symptoms of tuberculosis. Colt then travelled to the Great Lakes for relief from the disease and bought a farm in Michigan on Gooden's Lake.
The tubercular symptoms surfaced again and he left for Cincinnati, Ohio where he became a teacher of one of the first correspondence courses in America. He became the centre of a Bohemian Circle and counted John Howard Payne among his friends. From Ohio he attempted many business ventures throughout the United States. A land speculator in Texas, a soap manufacturer in New York, a grocery wholesaler in Georgia, a fur trader, a dry-goods merchant in Florida and an organizer of Mardi Gras masquerade balls in New Orleans.
Howard Payne served as a character witness for John Colt at John's trial for the murder of a printer named Samuel Adams, to whom Colt owed money for the publication of a bookkeeping textbook that he had written. The two men had disagreed over the final amount owed. Sources indicate that it was a discrepancy of US $1.35. Colt killed Adams with a hatchet in what he claimed was self-defence but he afterwards covered up the crime by disposing of the Adams body in a box of salt which he tried to ship to a fictitious address in New Orleans.
On September 28, 1842, after exhausting his final appeal, John Colt was sentenced to death by hanging and remanded to New York City's infamous prison, the Tombs. His sentence was to be carried out on November 14, 1842. Colt requested that he be allowed to marry Miss Caroline Henshaw on the morning of his hanging.
While imprisoned, John Colt lived luxuriously in his prison cell, receiving daily visits from friends and family, smoking Cuban cigars, sleeping in an actual bed instead of a mound of straw. He wore silk dressing gowns inside and a seal skin overcoat for his daily walks in the prison yard. His cell contained the latest novels, a gilded bird cage with a canary and fresh flowers brought to him every day by Miss Henshaw.
He dined on meals from local hotels such as quail on toast and game pâtés. Several attempts were made to break him out of the prison by dressing him in women's clothing but all these efforts were foiled. A doctor was secretly hired. One who claimed that he could resuscitate Colt from the hanging, if his body did not remain suspended for very long. As a doctor, he believed Colt's neck to be of such thickness that strangulation would be impossible. Colt's friends installed the doctor in the Shakespeare Hotel on the morning of the scheduled hanging and planned to bring the body there from the Tombs for resuscitation.
On the morning of November 14, 1842, John Colt and Miss Henshaw were married in the prison at a small ceremony conducted by Reverend Henry Anthon, an Episcopal Minister. The wedding was witnessed by Samuel Colt and John Howard Payne. After the ceremony and a few hours before the scheduled execution, a fire mysteriously broke out in the Tombs. When the blaze was extinguished, John Colt's body was found in his cell. He had apparently stabbed himself in the heart with a folding knife, believed to have been smuggled in to him by a family member. His body was taken by Reverend Anthon and buried in the churchyard of St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.
Here is what a former Chief of Police of New York said in his book regarding that very busy little day, "I have heard it declared over and over again by those in a position to know, that Colt did not commit suicide; that the body found in his cell when the Tombs caught fire was only a corpse prepared for the purpose and that he escaped in the confusion. The coroner, it is said, was aware of the deception. Persons who knew Colt well are positive they have seen him since the time of his alleged suicide in both California and in Texas."
Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers ever produced for use in the Seminole War and witnessed their effective use as his fifteen man unit defeated a larger force of seventy Comanche warriors in Texas. Walker wanted to order Colt revolvers for all the Texas Rangers in the Mexican-American War so he travelled to New York City in search of Samuel Colt.
He met Sam Colt in a gunsmith shop on January 4, 1847 and placed an order for one thousand revolvers. Walker requested some modifications at this time. He wanted the new model revolvers to hold six shots instead of the original five, to have a cartridge load powerful enough to kill either a man or a horse with a single shot and be much quicker to reload. That large order allowed Sam Colt to establish a brand new firearm business. His factory in Hartford also built the sidearms used by both the North and the South in the American Civil War and his firearms were rightly credited with “taming the western frontier.”
Colt historian William Edwards tells us that Caroline Henshaw had married Samuel Colt in Scotland and that the son she bore was Samuel Colt's and not John Colt's. In a 1953 biography about Samuel Colt, based largely on family letters, Edwards wrote that John Colt’s marriage to Caroline was a way to legitimize her son, Sammy. The reason being that Samuel Colt had abandoned Caroline after their Scottish wedding because he later felt that she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and because divorce was a serious social stigma at the time.
Samuel Colt took care of the child Samuel Caldwell Colt with a large allowance and also paid for his tuition in what were described as "the finest private schools". In correspondence with and about his namesake, Samuel Colt referred to him as his "nephew", in quotes. Historians such as Edwards and Harold Schechter have maintained that this was the elder Samuel Colt's way of letting the world know that the boy was his own son without directly saying so.
After Samuel Colt's death in 1862, he left the boy two million dollars by 2010 valuations. Samuel Colt's widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt and her brother contested this award. In probate, Caroline's son Sammy, produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Samuel Colt were indeed married in Scotland in 1838. This document proved him a rightful heir to part of Colt's estate, if not to the Colt Manufacturing Company itself.
Some other men deserving of scrutiny as being chess pieces in play during these times were Haden Edwards, John Dunn Hunter, Richard Fields, Peter Samuel Davenport, John Marie Durst and Adolphus Sterne. History doesn’t tell us much about the women who begat, raised, accompanied and were raised by these men. Any serious reader of history must take the tiny female offerings they find in their research and factor this missing half of the equation when trying to ascertain what actually happened and why, in any given set of circumstances.
Haden Edwards was born in Stafford County, Virginia on August 12, 1771. He was the son of John Edwards, Sr., who later became one of the first of two U. S. Senators from Kentucky. Haden married Susanna Beall of Maryland and they had thirteen children. In 1820 Haden Edwards and his brother Benjamin acquired a plantation near Jackson, Mississippi. One of his sons, Haden Harrison Edwards (1812–1864) was a Texan who worked as a legislator, a merchant and a soldier. He founded the Sabine Pass and East Texas Railway and was that company's first president.
After learning that Mexican authorities were considering opening the Mexican State of Coahuila y Tejas to American immigration many empresarios congregated in Mexico City to lobby for land grants. Among those were Stephen F. Austin and Haden Edwards, an American land speculator who quickly became known for his quick temper and aggressiveness. After three years of abrasive persuasion, various Mexican governments allowed Americans to settle in Coahuila y Tejas on March 24, 1824 by passing the Federal General Colonization Law, which permitted immigration into Coahuila y Tejas. Under the terms of the law, each state would set its own requirements for immigration. Large land grants of land were made to new empresarios who recruited settlers for a particular colony.
Edwards was granted a colonization contract on April 14 of that year. His contract allowed him to settle eight hundred families in Coahuila y Tejas. It required Edwards to recognize all preexisting Spanish and Mexican land titles within his grant area, to raise a militia to protect the settlers and to allow the Mexican State Land Commissioner to certify all deeds that Edwards would later award to colonists.
Haden Edwards' grant was located in a difficult part of the country. It encompassed the land from the Navasota River to twenty leagues West of the Sabine River and from twenty leagues North of the Gulf of Mexico to fifteen leagues North of the town of Nacogdoches. In Nacogdoches itself were the remnants of previous filibuster expeditions that had failed.
Britannica defines filibustering -”originally in U. S. history, the attempt to take over countries at peace with the United States via privately financed military expeditions, a practice that reached its peak during the 1850s. In U. S. legislative usage, the term refers to obstructive delaying tactics.” A league at the time and place in question was considered to be the distance a person could walk in one hour.
To the North and West were nomadic hostile Indians; the southern boundary was a colony belonging to Stephen F. Austin who had received a special permission to establish his colony several years prior. East of Edwards's grant was the former Sabine Free State, a neutral zone which had been essentially but conveniently lawless for several decades.
Edwards arrived in Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas in August 1825. Choosing to believe that he was authorized to determine the validity of the preexisting land deeds, in September he posted notices alerting all residents that they must provide written proof of their ownership or their land would be forfeited and sold at auction. None of the English speaking residents had valid titles because they had been duped by previous land speculators.
Most of the Spanish speaking landowners were unable to find the documentation that their families had received seventy or more years before. The total number of such preexisting grants was very low. According to General Land Office records, only thirty-two had been made before 1825. In only one case was someone's land actually sold to someone else. But Edwards' behaviour appeared threatening and it polarized the old inhabitants against the newcomers. Edwards had fifty thousand dollars invested in his venture.
Anticipating the conflict between the new empresario and the old residents of the area, Alcalde (Mayor) Luis Procela and Empleado (Clerk) Jose Antonio Sepulveda, began immediately validating the old existing Spanish and Mexican land titles so Edwards accused those men of forging deeds. Both sides acted out of turn for only the State Land Commissioner had been given the Mexican government’s legal authority to validate land titles.
An election for Alcalde in December provided the occasion for the factions to express their opposition. Samuel Norris was the candidate for the Old Settlers and Haden Edwards' son-in-law, Chichester Chaplin, was the candidate for the New Settlers. After the voting, Edwards certified Chaplin's victory to Mexican authority, José Antonio Saucedo in San Antonio.
Sam Norris' supporters challenged this and charged that the voters in Chaplin's support were unqualified. Saucedo reversed the election in March 1826 and ordered the archives and duties to be surrendered to Mr. Norris. The controversy did not settle down and in June 1826 Mexican President Guadalupe Victoria annulled Haden Edwards' contract and expelled him from Mexico. Haden was outraged and retained the support of the New Settlers that he had brought with him.
On November 22, 1826, Chichester Chaplin's future father-in-law, Martin Parmer, John S. Roberts and Burrell J. Thompson led a group of thirty-six men from Ayish Bayou to Nacogdoches. They seized Norris, Haden Edwards and José Antonio Sepulveda among others and tried them in kangaroo court for ‘oppression and corruption’ in office. Haden was released and his inclusion in the group of detainees was likely to cover his participation in the scheme.
The other men were convicted and told that they deserved to die but would be released if they all relinquished their offices. Martin Parmer turned the enforcement of the verdict over to a man named Joseph Durst and proclaimed him Alcalde.
As soon as the Mexican authorities heard of this incident, Lt. Col. Mateo Ahumada, the principal military commander of Coahuila y Tejas, was ordered to Nacogdoches. He left San Antonio on December 11, 1826 with twenty dragoons and one hundred and ten infantrymen. Ahumada also enlisted Stephen F. Austin and Peter Ellis Bean, a Mexican Indian Agent.
Haden Edwards and Martin Parmer began preparations to separate from Mexico in the name of an independent republic they called Fredonia. They planned to use the Texas Cherokee in fighting their rebellion so they designed a flag with two parallel red and white bars with which to symbolize the Red Man and the White Man. The flag was inscribed "Independence, Liberty, Justice. Another three word slogan reminiscent of the French Revolution and of the Grand Orient Masonic Lodge. They managed to obtain a treaty with the signatures of a Cherokee named Richard Fields and an American called John Dunn Hunter.
Richard Fields was one-eighth Cherokee and acted as a diplomat for the Texas Cherokee. He was born around 1780 and was first noted in 1801 as an Emissary of the Cherokee Council to United States agents in Tennessee. He appeared as an interpreter on September 19, 1812, at the Council House Treaty Council in the Chickasaw country. In 1814, during the War of 1812, he served as Captain of a unit of Cherokee Auxiliaries attached to Gen. Andrew Jackson's Army.
John Dunn Hunter was born about 1796 and is one of the non-native players we will examine in closer detail. He claimed that as a child he had been captured by the Cherokee Indians before they came to Coahuila y Tejas. He adopted the name of an English benefactor, John Dunn and later added the surname Hunter that he claimed was given to him by the Indians because of his prowess in the chase.
Although Hunter lived with the Indians until about 1816, he received a fairly good education and travelled considerably through the United States and England. While in England, Hunter wrote a book which was published in London in 1824, the same year the Mexican government first allowed American colonists into Coahuila y Tejas. The book was titled, Memoirs Of A Captivity Among The Indians Of North America.
Richard Fields appeared in Coahuila y Tejas around 1820, at about the time Chief Bowles brought the Cherokee into the region and he was leader of one of several Cherokee villages in Tejas. Because of his skill and experience in diplomacy, Fields was chosen by the Cherokee inter-village Council to negotiate a Spanish land grant.
In late 1822 he led a delegation to San Antonio de Béxar to present the Cherokee request to Governor José Félix Trespalacios. Trespalacios and Fields agreed that the Cherokees would provide patrols to guard the Sabine River against American incursion and smuggling. In return, the Cherokee could remain on their Coahuila y Tejas land and Richard Fields' delegation was permitted to travel to Mexico City to petition the Viceroy.
Richard Fields's mission to secure a grant of territory for the Cherokees was spoiled by Agustín de Iturbide's overthrow of the Spanish government and the resulting political turmoil in Mexico City. After Emperor Iturbide's abdication in March 1823, Fields unsuccessfully petitioned the new Congress for assistance. Another Cherokee delegation left Mexico City without having secured a grant.
After his return to Coahuila y Tejas, Richard Fields continued to serve as diplomat for the Cherokee. In 1824 he became involved with trying to unite the Coahuila y Tejas Indian tribes into a Grand Alliance and with encouraging other nomadic tribes to settle in Coahuila y Tejas. Those efforts alarmed the Mexican government and further hampered land negotiations.
John Dunn Hunter returned from England to the Cherokee at one of their Coahuila y Tejas villages in 1825. In December of that year he was sent by Richard Fields to renew negotiations with Mexico for a Cherokee grant in Coahuila y Tejas. He arrived in Mexico City on March 19, 1826 and was promised land to be granted to individual Indian settlers but was unsuccessful also in getting a Tribal Grant with the Right of Self-Government.
It was when Hunter returned to the Cherokee in Coahuila y Tejas in May, 1826, from his unsuccessful mission that he and Richard Fields (despairing of ever receiving an official grant of territory from the Mexican government) began entering negotiations with Martin Parmer, Benjamin W. Edwards (Haden’s brother) and their associates living around Nacogdoches on behalf of the Texas Cherokee to assist in the planned Fredonian Rebellion.
Arrangements were made at Sand Springs in Rusk County to divide the future Fredonia between the Indians and the Anglo settlers with a line beginning at those springs and running due West to the Rio Grande. Some histories tell us that the Texas Cherokee were led by Richard Fields and John Dunn Hunter. Ill-advised, manipulated or at best, inflicted with good intentions would be a more accurate assessment, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, Haden Edwards designated his brother Benjamin as Commander in Chief of Fredonia and appealed to the United States for help. On December 16, 1826 the rebels rode into Nacogdoches and raised their flag of independence. The rebels signed it and installed it over a trading post called the Old Stone Fort. Their Declaration of Independence was signed on December 21, 1826, declaring the Republic of Fredonia and encompassing all the land from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande.
Mexican officers, militia and members of Stephen F. Austin's colony reached Nacogdoches on January 31, 1827. Mexican Indian Agent Peter Ellis Bean and empresario Stephen F. Austin convinced the actual tribal leaders to repudiate the rebellion. The Cherokee Council determined not to honour the treaty signed by Fields and Hunter. When their expected Cherokee support never materialized, the Fredonians fled across the Sabine River into the safety of Louisiana.
After being tried by the Cherokee Council, both Richard Fields and John Dunn Hunter were condemned and fled. Both were captured separately and executed in early February 1827 for involving the Texas Cherokee and associated tribes in the whole damn mess by their brazen machinations on behalf of all those not present.
Not long after those events, the Chichester Chaplin family settled in Natchitoches. On June 4, 1827, Chaplin was named a Justice of the Peace for Natchitoches Parish, a post he held for less than a year. Chaplin's first wife, Tabitha Beall Edwards Aydelot died on November 24, 1827 and he married Emily Parmer who was the daughter of Fredonian rebel Martin Parmer, a few years later in Natchitoches Parish while he was a fugitive from the Rebellion.
They had six children. With his selection as a Louisiana Justice in 1827, he began a judicial career in both Western Louisiana and Coahuila y Tejas / Republic of Texas / State of Texas that spanned almost four decades. In 1827–28 he served as a Probate Judge and from 1829 to 1834 as a Parish Judge of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana which was newly formed from a portion of the original Natchitoches Parish.
Around 1834 Chichester returned to Coahuila y Tejas, where in 1836 he was chosen as the first Chief Justice of the new Jefferson County, in the Republic of Texas. The next year, his former father-in-law, Haden Edwards was made the first Worshipful Master of the Free Masonic Milam Lodge No. 2 when it was organized in 1837. A famous photograph of the time shows Edwards displaying the Masonic Sign of the Lion's Paw (right hand flat, fingers bent at second knuckles held over heart) in a portrait with his wife.
In 1838 Chichester was made a member of the Board of Land Commissioners of San Augustine County, Republic of Texas. Since he was in Coahuila y Tejas before 1835, Judge Chaplin was awarded a Mexican land grant of a league in San Augustine County on May 18, 1835. In December 1839 he received a Head Right Grant of six hundred and forty acres in Jasper County from the Republic of Texas.
Head Right Grants were issued to individuals by Boards of Land Commissioners in each county. A First Class Head Right Grant was issued to every "free white person" who arrived in Coahuila y Tejas before Independence, March 2, 1836. Heads of families received one league (4,428 acres) and one labour (177.1 acres), while single men received 1/3 league (1,476.1 acres). In 1840 Chichester purchased even more land from his wife's family.
By 1845 he was back in Louisiana serving as a District Attorney for Sabine Parish, until 1853. Then he was installed as District Judge of Sabine Parish. When a District Court for the Sixteenth District was established in 1855, he began functioning as a Judge for both the old Ninth District Court and the new Sixteenth District Court, both in Sabine Parish until December 1864.
In 1865 Chaplin completed his public service as the Attorney for the Natchitoches Parish Police Jury. In 1870 Chaplin became Grand Master of the Free Masonic Phoenix Lodge No. 38 in Natchitoches. His former father-in-law, Haden Edwards returned to Coahuila y Tejas during the Texas Revolution, participated in the Battle of Nacogdoches, made his final home there and died on August 14, 1849.
Here are a few pages from an interesting book about Mr. Hunter entitled, John Dunn Hunter, by Samuel Goodrich from Curiosities of Human Nature. Boston: Rand and Mann, 1849 [1843], pp. 236-253).
I include it for you to draw your own conclusions from as to what he was up to. He is credited in some citations with being a Cherokee leader, though he was neither a Cherokee nor was he their leader. The Cherokee were not allowed travel papers to go to the capitol while Hunter was allowed those documents, so he went in their stead. Two accounts disagree on which tribe he was kidnapped by, as well.
“About the year 1822, there appeared at New York a young man, of small stature, light hair, light eyes, and in every respect of ordinary appearance, who told of himself a strange and interesting story, which was briefly this.”
“At an early period of his childhood, he, with two other white children, living on the farthest bound of the western settlements, were one day carried off by a party of Indians, probably Kickapoo. One of the children was killed before his eyes, and he was soon separated from the other. He was carried to a considerable distance by the Indians, who at last arrived at their hunting grounds. He became gradually reconciled to his situation, and, though he was occasionally taunted by being white, he was finally regarded as one of the tribe.”
“He continued to live among the Indians for many years; travelled with them in their migrations over the vast western wilds, visited the borders of the Pacific Ocean, and shared in the wild adventures of Indian life. He came, with his Indian friends, at last, to the Osage settlements on the Arkansas, where he found some white traders, among whom was a Colonel Watkins, who treated him with kindness, and sought to persuade him to leave the Indians, and return to civilized life. Such, however, was his attachment to his adopted friends, that he rejected these suggestions.”
“Soon after, however, under the influence of intoxication, his Indian friends having laid a deep scheme for murdering Colonel Watkins and his party of hunters, the hero of our story deserted his tribe, and gave timely notice to Watkins, thus saving his life, and that of his friends.”
“Though his mind was greatly agitated by a feeling of self-disgust for the treachery he had committed toward his Indian brethren, he continued with the party of Watkins for a time, and descended the Arkansas river with them, nearly to its junction with the Mississippi. Here he left them, having made up his mind to join some Indian tribe which might not be acquainted with his breach of faith to the band of Osages, with whom he had lived so long.”
“Being supplied with a rifle and plenty of ammunition, he struck into the wilderness in a northerly direction, and pursued his wanderings alone, amid the boundless solitude. In the volume which he afterwards published, he thus describes this portion of his adventures:”
"The hunting season for furs had now gone by, and the time and labour necessary to procure food for myself, was very inconsiderable. I knew of no human being near me; my only companions were the grazing herds, the rapacious animals that preyed upon them, the beaver and other animals that afforded pelts, and birds, fish and reptiles. Notwithstanding this solitude, many sources of amusement presented themselves to me, especially after I had become somewhat familiarized to it.”
"The country around was delightful, and I roved over it almost incessantly, in ardent expectation of falling in with some party of Indians, with whom I might be permitted to associate myself. Apart from the hunting that was essential to my subsistence, I practised various arts to take fish, birds, and small game; frequently bathed in the river, and took great pleasure in regarding the dispositions and habits of such animals as were presented to my observation.”
"The conflicts of the male buffaloes and deer, the attack of the latter on the rattlesnake, the industry and ingenuity of the beaver in constructing its dam, and the attacks of the panther on its prey, afforded much interest, and engrossed much time. Indeed, I have lain for half a day at a time, in the shade, to witness the management and policy observed by the ants in storing up their food, the manoeuvres of the spider in taking its prey, the artifice of the mason-fly in constructing and storing its clayey cells, and the voraciousness and industry of the dragon-fly to satisfy its appetite.”
"In one instance, I vexed a rattlesnake, till it bit itself, and subsequently saw it due from the poison of its own fangs. I also saw one strangled in the wreathed folds of its inveterate enemy -the black snake. But, in the midst of this extraordinary employment, my mind was far from being satisfied. I looked back with the most painful reflections on what I had been, and on what sacrifices I had made, merely to become an outcast, to be hated and despised by those I sincerely loved and esteemed. But, however much I was disposed to be dissatisfied and quarrel with myself, the consolation of the most entire conviction that I had acted rightly, always followed, and silenced my self upbraiding.”
"The anxiety and regrets about my nation, country and kindred, for a long time held paramount dominion over all my feelings; but I looked unwavering to the Great Spirit, in whom experience had taught me to confide, and the tumultuous agitations of my mind gradually subsided into a calm; I became satisfied with the loneliness of my situation, could lie down to sleep among the rocks, ravines, and ferns, in careless quietude, and hear the wolf and panther prowling around me; and I could almost feel the venomous reptiles seeking shelter and repose under my robe, with sensations bordering on indifference.”
"In one of my excursions, while sitting in the shade of a large tree, situated on a gentle declivity, with a view to procure some mitigation from the oppressive heat of the mid-day sun, I was surprised by a tremendous rushing noise. I sprang up, and discovered a herd, I believe, of a thousand buffaloes, running at full speed, directly towards me; with a view, as I supposed, to beat off the flies, which, at this season, are inconceivably troublesome to those animals.”
"I placed myself behind the tree, so as not to be seen, not apprehending any danger, because they ran with two great rapidity, and too closely together, to afford any one of them an opportunity of injuring me, while protected in this manner.”
"The buffaloes passed so near me on both sides that I could have touched several of them, merely by extending my arm. In the rear of the herd, was one on which a huge panther had fixed, and was voraciously engaged on cutting off the muscles of the neck. I did not discover this circumstance till it had nearly passed beyond rifle-shot distance, when I discharged my piece, and wounded the panther. It instantly left its hold on the buffalo, and bounded, with great rapidity, towards me. On witnessing the result of my shot, the apprehensions I suffered can hardly be imagined. I had, however, sufficient presence of mind to retreat, and secrete myself behind the trunk of the tree, opposite to its approaching direction. Here, solicitous for what possibly might be the result of my unfortunate shot, I prepared both my knife and tomahawk for what I supposed would be a deadly conflict with the terrible animal.”
"In a few moments, however, I had the satisfaction to hear it in the branches of the tree over my head. My rifle had just been discharged, and I entertained fears that I could not reload it without discovering and exposing myself to the fury of its destructive rage. I looked into the tree with the utmost caution, but could not perceive it, though its groans and vengeance-breathing growls told me that it was not far off, and also what I had to expect in case it should discover me.”
"In this situation, with my eyes almost constantly directed upwards to observe its motions, I silently loaded my rifle, and then, creeping softly round the trunk of the tree, saw my formidable enemy resting on a considerable branch, about thirty feet from the ground, with his side fairly exposed. I was unobserved, took deliberate aim, and shot it through the heart. It made a single bound from the tree to the earth, and died in a moment afterwards.”
"I reloaded my rifle before I ventured to approach it, and even then not without some apprehension. I took its skin, and was, with the assistance of fire and smoke, enabled to preserve and dress it. I name this circumstance, because it afterwards afforded a source of some amusement; for I used frequently to array myself in it, as near as possible to the costume and form of the original, and surprise the herds of buffaloes, elk and deer, which, on my approach, uniformly fled with great precipitation and dread.”
"On several occasions, when I waked in the morning, I found a rattlesnake coiled up close alongside of me: some precaution was necessarily used to avoid them. In one instance, I lay quiet till the snake saw fit to retire; in another, I rolled gradually and imperceptibly away, till out of its reach; and in another, where the snake was still more remote, but in which we simultaneously discovered each other, I was obliged, while it was generously warning me of the danger I had to fear from the venomous potency of its fangs, to kill it with my tomahawk."
“After Hunter had been engaged in roving about in this manner for several months, hoping to meet with some party of Indians to whom he might attach himself, he met with a company of French hunters, whom he accompanied to Flee's Settlement, on the White River. From this point, after a stay of some months, in which he acquired a good deal of credit for cures which he performed by means of Indian remedies, he set out on a hunting expedition, during which he collected a large quantity of furs. These he sold to a Yankee, for 650 dollars, as he supposed, but, being ignorant on the subject of money, he found, on having the cash counted, that it was only 22 dollars!”
“This took place at Maxwell's Fort, on the White River. Disgusted with the white people, by this act of plunder, he determined to quit them forever, and set off again to join the Indians. He was, however, diverted from his purpose, and went with a hunting party up the west fork of the river St. Francis. spending the season here, he returned, and making his way down the Mississippi, sold his furs for 1100 dollars. Thence he proceeded as a boatman to New Orleans, where his mind was greatly astonished at the scenes he beheld, the streets, the houses, the wharves, ships, &c.”
“He retraced his steps, and came to Cape Girardeau, in Missouri, where he remained some time, acquiring the rudiments of the English language. His acquaintances had given him the name of Hunter, because of his expertness and success in the chase. His Christian name was adopted, as he says in his book, from the following circumstance. "As Mr. John Dunn, a gentleman of high respectability, of Cape Girardeau county, state of Missouri, had treated me in every respect more like a brother or a son than any other individual had, since my association with the white people, I adopted his for that of my distinctive, and have since been known by the name of John Dunn Hunter." It is important for the reader to mark this passage, for important results afterwards turned upon it.”
“He now spent two or three years, a part of the time at school, making, however, several expeditions to New Orleans, to dispose of furs he had either taken in hunting or obtained by purchase. At last, in the autumn of 1821, he crossed the Alleghenies, and entered upon a new career. So far, his story is told by himself, in his book, which we shall notice hereafter.”
“On his way, Hunter paid a visit to Mr. Jefferson, who received him kindly, and, taking a strong interest in his welfare, gave him letters of introduction to several persons at Washington. Hunter went thither, and, passing on, came to Philadelphia, and at last to New York, everywhere exciting a lively interest, by the remarkable character of his story, and the manner in which he related it. He was found to be well-informed as to many things, then little known, respecting the western country; he was, accordingly, much sought after, patronized and flattered, especially by persons distinguished for science and wealth. He was, in short, a lion. The project was soon suggested, that he should write a book, detailing his adventures, and giving an account of the Indians, and the Indian country, as far as he was acquainted with these subjects. A subscription was started and readily filled with a long list of great names. The book was written by Mr. Edward Clark, and in 1823, it was published under the title of "Manners and Customs Of The Several Indian Tribes Located West Of The Mississippi, &c."
“This work, written in a clever style, detailed the wonderful life and adventures of the hero, and gave a view of the Far West -the country, the animals, the plants; and it described the Indian tribes, their numbers, character, customs, &c. It also gave an account of their system of medicine, and their practice of surgery. The book was well received, and Hunter was borne along upon the full tide of public favour.”
“And now, another view was opened to him. It was suggested that he should go to England, and publish his work there. Taking letters from several men of the highest standing, and especially one to the Duke of Sussex, from Mr. Jefferson, as we are informed, he crossed the Atlantic, and made his appearance in the great metropolis. The career upon which he now entered, affords a curious piece of history.”
“Hunter's letters, of course, secured him the favour and kind offices of some of the leading men in London. His book was immediately published and heralded forth by the press, as one of the most remarkable productions of the day. The information it contained was treated as a revelation of the most interesting facts, and the tale of the hero was regarded as surpassing that of Robinson Crusoe, in point of interest. Hunter was a man of extraordinary endowments, and sustained the part he had to play with wonderful consistency. But all this would hardly account for his success, without considering another point.”
“In London, as well among the high as the low, there is a yearning desire for excitement. Imprisoned in a vast city, and denied companionship with the thousand objects which occupy the mind and heart in the country, they go about crying, "Who will show us any new thing?" Thus it is, that, in a crowded street, there is always a mob ready to collect, like vultures to the carcass, around every accident or incident that may happen: and these seem to consist of persons who have no profession but to see what is going on.”
“In high life, this passion for novelty is more refined, but it is equally craving. There are thousands in the circles of rank and fashion, who, having no business to occupy them, no cares, no sources of hope and fear, are like travellers athirst in a desert; and to them, a new scandal, a new fashion, a late joke, a strange animal, a queer monster, is an oasis, greatly to be coveted. One quality this novelty must have; it must, in some way or other, belong to "good society"--my Lord, or my Lady, must have a finger in it: they must, at least, patronize it, so that in naming it, the idea of rank may be associated with it.”
“Such a new thing was John Dunn Hunter. He was, supposing his story to be true, remarkable for his adventures. There was something exceedingly captivating to the fancy in the idea of a white man, who had lived so long with savages, as to have been transformed into a savage himself: beside, there was a mystery about him. Who was his father?--who his mother? What a tale of romance lay in these pregnant inquiries, and what a beautiful development might yet be in the womb of time!”
“Nor was this all: Hunter, as we have said, was a man of talent. Though small and mean in his personal appearance, his manner was remarkable, and his demeanour befitted his story. He had taken lodgings in Warwick street, and occupied the very rooms which Washington Irving had once inhabited. Another American author, of no mean fame, was his fellow-lodger. He held free intercourse with all Americans who came to London. He sought their society, and, in the height of his power, he loved to exercise it in their behalf, and to their advantage.”
“In dress, Hunter adopted the simplest garb of a gentleman; in conversation, he was peculiar. He said little till excited; he then spoke rapidly, and often as if delivering an oration. He was accustomed to inveigh against civilized society,--its luxuries and its vices,--and to paint in glowing hues the pleasures and virtues of savage life. He was very ingenious, and often truly eloquent. It was impossible, believing in the genuineness of his character and the sincerity of his motives, not to be touched by his wild enthusiasm.”
“It is easy to see, that such a man, unsuspected, introduced into society by the brother of the king and patronized by the heads of the learned societies, launched upon the full tide of fashionable society in the world's metropolis; had a brilliant voyage before him. During the winter of 1823-4, Hunter was the lion of the patrician circles of London. There was a real strife among countesses, duchesses, and the like, to signalize their parties by the presence of this interesting wonder. In considering whether to go to a ball, a soiree or a jam, the deciding point of inquiry was, "Will Hunter be there?" If so, "Yes." If not, "No!"
“Nothing could be more curious than to see this singular man, in the midst of a gorgeous party, where diamonds flashed and titles hung on every individual around him. He seemed totally indifferent to the scene; or, at least, unobservant of the splendours that encircled him. He was the special object of regard to the ladies. There was something quite piquant in his indifference. He seemed not to acknowledge the flattery that fell like showers of roses and that too from the ruby lips and lustrous eyes of princes' daughters, thick upon him. He seldom sat down: he stood erect and even when encircled by ladies, gazed a little upward and over them. He often answered a question without looking at the questioner. Sometimes, though quite rarely, he was roused and delivered a kind of speech. It was a great thing, if the oracle would but hold forth! The lass or lady who chanced to hear this was but too happy. The burden of the oration was always nearly the same: The advantages of simple savage life over civilization. It was strange to see those who were living on the pinnacle of artificial society, intoxicated with such a theme; yet, such was the art of the juggler, that even their fancy was captivated. Those who had been bred in the downy lap of luxury were charmed with tales of the hardy chase and deadly encounter; those to whom the artifices of dress constituted more than half the pleasures of existence, delighted to dwell upon the simplicity of forest attire: Those who gloried in the splendours of a city mansion, halls, boudoirs, saloons and conservatories; thought how charming it would be to dwell beneath the wide canopy or a deer-skin tent! Surely, such triumphs display the skill and power of a master.”
“During the winter of which we speak, Hunter's card-rack was crowded with cards, notes, and invitations, from lords and ladies of the very highest rank and fashion, in London. Many a fair hand indicted and sent billets to him, that would have turned some loftier heads than his. On one occasion, by some accident, he had dislocated his shoulder. The next morning, Dr. Petingale, surgeon to the Duke of Sussex, called to see him, by command of his Grace, and delivered to him a long note of consolation. This note, from his Royal Highness, was somewhat in the style of Hannah More, and kindly suggested all the topics of comfort proper to such an hour of tribulation.”
“Hunter did not spend his whole time in fashionable dissipation. He visited the various institutions of London, and often with persons of the highest rank. He fell in with Robert Owen, of Lanarck, who had not yet been pronounced mad, and the two characters seemed greatly delighted with each other. Hunter seemed interested in the subject of education, and made this a frequent topic of discussion. He visited the infant school of Wilderspin, consisting of two hundred scholars, all of the lower classes. When he heard forty of these children, under three years of age, unite in singing God Save the King, his heart was evidently touched, and the tears gathered in his eyes. It is not one of the least curious facts in his history, that he patronized his countrymen, and was the means of establishing a portrait painter from Kentucky, in his profession. He induced the Duke of Sussex, with whom he regularly dined once a week, to sit for him: the portrait was exhibited at Somerset House, and our artist was at once famous.”
“Hunter now took a tour to Scotland. In his way, he spent some weeks with Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, and experienced the noble hospitality of that truly noble gentleman. He passed on to Scotland, where he excited a deep interest among such persons as the Duke of Hamilton, Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Jeffrey, and others of the highest eminence. The ladies, also, manifested the very liveliest sensations in his behalf.”
“During his stay in Scotland, he was invited to spend a few days at a charming seat, in the vicinity of Edinburgh. Thither he went. One day, as he was walking in the park with a fair lady, daughter of the proprietor, they came to an open space, through which a bright stream was running. At a particular point, and near the path of the ramblers, was a large rock, at the base of which the rivulet swept round, forming a small eddying pool. Over this the wild shrubs had gathered, growing luxuriously, as if escaped from the restraints of culture. Hunter paused, folded his arms, and gazed at the picturesque group of rock, shrub, and stream. The lady looked at him with interest. She hesitated, then gathered courage, and asked what it was that so moved him.”
"Nothing! nothing!" said he, half starting, and passing on.
"Nay, nay,' said the fair one, "you must tell me."
"Well, if I must," was the reply, "I must. You may think it foolish, yet such is the truth, -that little pool, gathered in the shelter of the rock and brier, reminds me of early days of my childhood, and the forest. Past memories come over my bosom, like summer upon the snow; I think how I have often stooped at such a stream as this, and quenched my thirst, with a relish nothing can now bestow. I feel an emotion I can hardly resist; it seems to call me from these scenes, this voluptuous, yet idle life. I have a sense of wrong, of duty neglected, of happiness missed which makes me sad even in such a place as this and with society like yours."
“By this time Hunter had framed a design, either real or pretended, of doing some great thing for the Indians. He insisted that the attempt to civilize them at once, was idle and fallacious; he proposed, therefore, to select some spot along the banks of the Wabash, and which he represented as a wild kind of paradise, and here he would gather the Indians, and, adopting a system which might blend the life of the hunter with that of the cultivator, wile them gradually, and without shocking their prejudices, into civilization. This scheme he set forth as the great object of his wishes. He spoke of it frequently, and in Edinburgh, especially, delighted his hearers with his enthusiastic eloquence in dilating upon the subject. No one suspected his sincerity, and the greatest men in Scotland avowed and felt the deepest interest in his project.”
“The summer came, and Hunter went back to London. He now announced his intention to return to America: still, he lingered for several months. His friends noticed that he was dejected, yet he assigned no cause for this. Presents were made to him, and hints of assistance, to further his scheme of Indian civilization, were suggested. He availed himself of none of these advantages, save that he accepted a watch, richly jewelled, from the Duke of Sussex, and a splendid set of mathematical instruments, from Mr. Coke, of Norfolk. He also borrowed a hundred pounds of a friend. He took his farewell of London, and bearing with him the best wishes of all who had known him on that side of the Atlantic, he embarked at Liverpool for America.”
“Immediately after his arrival, he hastened to the south, spent a few days at New Orleans, and pushed into the wilds bordering upon Texas. In some way, he excited the jealousy of the Indians, who resolved to take his life. On a journey through the wilderness, he was attended by an Indian guide. Having occasion to pass a river, he stopped a moment in the middle of it, to let his horse drink. The guide was behind: obedient to his orders, he lifted his carbine, and shot Hunter through the back. He fell, a lifeless corpse, into the stream, and was borne away, as little heeded as a forest leaf.”
“Such are the facts, as we have been able to gather them, in respect to this remarkable man. The writer of this article saw him in London, and the incidents related of him while he was in England and Scotland, are stated upon personal knowledge. The events subsequent to his departure are derived from current rumour. The question has often been asked, What was the real character of John Dunn Hunter? That he was, to some extent, an imposter, can hardly be doubted. Mr. Duponceau, of Philadelphia examined into some Indian words which Hunter had given him, and found them to be fabrications. Mr. John Dunn, of Missouri, mentioned by Hunter as his friend and benefactor, was written to, and he declared that he had known no such person. These facts, with others, were laid before the public in the North American Review, and were regarded as fatal to the character of Hunter. The common judgment has been that he was wholly an imposter; we incline, however, to a different opinion.”
“We believe that the story of his early life, was in the main, correct;* that he did not originally intend any deception; that he came to New York with honest intentions but that the flattery he received led him by degrees to expand his views, and finally drew him into a deliberate career of fraud. So long as he was in the tide of prosperity abroad, he did not seem to reflect, and glided down contented with the stream: when the time came that he must return, his real situation presented itself, and weighed upon his spirits. It is to be remarked, however, that even in this condition he availed himself of no opportunities to amass money which he might have done to the amount of thousands. These facts, at war with the supposition that he was a mere imposter seem to show that he had still some principle of honour left, and some hope as to his future career. At all events, he was a man of extraordinary address, and his story shows how high a course of duplicity may elevate a man yet only to hurl him down the farther and the more fatally upon the sharp rocks of retribution.”
*We have been informed that Mr. Catlin, in his excursions among the western Indians, often met with tribes who had known Hunter and their accounts corroborated that which the latter gave in his book.”
Another man of interest in this chess game was Peter Samuel Davenport who was a prominent pioneer merchant and quartermaster to filibustering expeditions. Somebody has to supply the arms, ammo and tackle in every war be it declared or be it undeclared. He was the son of William and Ann (Davidson) Davenport. He was born on February 4, 1764 at Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Curiously, the same month and day as my wife and myself. In 1780, around the time Richard Fields was born and after the death of his parents, Davenport left Pennsylvania and travelled to Louisiana. He survived an Indian attack on the way and settled near Natchitoches where he engaged in commerce, working for well-known firms and for himself.
In 1798, the year Edward Burleson was born, Davenport entered into partnership with William Barr, Luther Smith, and Edward Murphy under the name, “House of Barr and Davenport” and the firm soon secured a monopoly on trade with all Coahuila y Tejas Indians from the Spanish government. Davenport became the local agent and established his headquarters in the Old Stone Fort in Nacogdoches.
Davenport went back to Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana in 1802, where he married Marie Louise Gagnon. They had four children. In 1806, they took in a godson, John Marie Durst at nine years old. In 1810, as the sole surviving partner of his business, Davenport continued to operate his monopoly and became independently wealthy. He became the legal guardian of a lad named, John Marie Durst in 1814, when that boy’s father died. Davenport taught Durst to manage a mercantile firm and to speak several languages, especially Spanish and Cherokee.
John Marie Durst is remembered as both an early East Texas merchant and a patriot. He is sometimes called the “Paul Revere of the Texas Revolution.” He shared the birthday of February 4 with his godfather and was born in the year 1797 at Arkansas Post, Arkansas. His parents were Jacob and Anna Agnes (Schesser) Durst. His mother died in 1799, leaving Jacob eight children to raise. In 1803 the Durst family moved to Natchitoches, Louisiana and in 1806 Jacob and three of his sons, including John Marie, went to Coahuila y Tejas.
When Peter Samuel Davenport came to Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas in 1812, he joined forces with the filibusters and furnished them with arms and ammunition. Richard Fields was active as an interpreter in Chickasaw country that year. Davenport assisted a Capt. James Gaines in raising a group of volunteers from East of the Trinity River and marched with them toward San Antonio. Before reaching San Antonio, he became Captain of a company of volunteers who participated in the capture of La Bahía. Then he returned to Nacogdoches to obtain more supplies. His wife had died on February 27, 1812 in Nacogdoches and was buried there.
After the collapse of the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition in 1813, Davenport, now a fugitive from Spanish authorities with a price on his head, fled across the Sabine River into Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Durst accompanied his exiled godfather. Davenport established himself on a luxurious plantation called Grand Ecore. At the age of seventeen, Durst volunteered for military service in the Second Louisiana Division and participated in the last years of the War of 1812 (1814–15), then returned home to Grand Ecore. In 1819, Davenport enlisted in James Long's expedition into Coahuila y Tejas.
Before the failure of Long's filibustering effort, Davenport furnished the supplies for the Long Expedition and served as a member of the governing council of Long's Republic. He then returned to Grand Ecore. While living in Natchitoches at Grand Encore, godson John Marie Durst became acquainted with Maj. John Jamison, the Indian Agent at Fort Jesup. On February 15, 1821, John Durst married Jamison's young daughter, Harriet Matilda. They had twelve children, six of whom survived to adulthood.
On a visit to Hot Springs, Arkansas for his failing health, Peter Samuel Davenport died on October 19, 1824. His body was returned to Natchitoches Parish and buried in the Russell Cemetery at Grand Ecore. At his death he owned some fifty thousand acres of land in Coahuila y Tejas and western Louisiana, forty-one slaves and great numbers of livestock. His son, Juan Benigno, married Jane Beall Edwards, the daughter of empresario Haden Edwards on November 12, 1829.
In his 1824 will, Samuel Davenport bequeathed ten thousand acres of land in Western Louisiana to John Marie Durst. In November 1829 as the result of an agreement with Davenport's newly married son, Juan Benigno, John Marie Durst acquired all Peter Samuel Davenport's land titles West of the Sabine River(Coahuila y Tejas) in exchange for his own land titles East of the river in Louisiana.
By 1829 Durst returned to Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas where he established a mercantile business and became active in local politics. He was in great demand as an interpreter of Spanish, French, German and a number of Indian languages. In 1832 he took part in the Battle of Nacogdoches. Durst served as an interpreter for the Mexican government in its negotiations with the Indians and in April 1834 John Marie Durst received an additional Mexican land grant of five leagues in what are today, Houston, Nacogdoches and Anderson counties. He and his family lived in the Old Stone Fort until July 1834.
In 1834 he moved to his San Patricio grant on the Angelina River and laid out the town of Mount Sterling. In 1835 Durst served as a Texas Representative in the Legislature of the Mexican State of Coahuila y Tejas. At this post, he learned from Mexican friends of the impending movement into Coahuila y Tejas of the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Durst rode nine hundred and sixty miles to warn the people of Coahuila y Tejas. This ride earned him the Paul Revere sobriquet. During the Texas Revolution, John Marie Durst commanded a company on the East bank of the Angelina River and reported the activities of Col. Galerno Cruz below Nacogdoches. By 1837 the tax roll for Nacogdoches County in the new Republic of Texas listed him as the owner of thirty-six thousand and two hundred acres of Republic of Texas land. John Marie Durst was also Captain of a company operating with Thomas J. Rusk against the Texas Cherokee and Kickapoo under Chief Bowles at the Battle of the Neches in 1839.
In 1844 he moved onto Sterling C. Robertson's Coahuila y Tejas colony in what later became Leon County, where he bought land near Leon Prairie. In 1846 he was an Agent to receive Government Supplies for United States troops en route to Mexico to fight.
John Durst died in Galveston on February 9, 1851, while attending a session of the Texas Supreme Court. A month later, Edward Burleson was laying out the new Texas town of San Marcos. Burleson crossed over to the other side and joined Durst just nine months after that task. Durst was buried in his family cemetery on his own homestead near Leona in Leon County, Texas. His wife, Harriet Matilda also died in Leon County on September 23, 1885 and was buried alongside her husband.
In 1936 the state of Texas erected a monument to John M. and Harriet Matilda Durst in their family cemetery in Leon County. That same year between the big World Wars, the state of Texas erected a monument near Tyler, Texas. Tyler is the birthplace of my mother and very near to the birthplace of her mother. It is also near the site of the Battle of the Neches.
I walked on the old battlefield for the first time in the sweltering heat of the Summer of 2007, one hundred and sixty-eight years after the bloodshed and I saw the monument. It was inscribed, “ON THIS SITE THE CHEROKEE CHIEF BOWLES WAS KILLED ON JULY 16, 1839 WHILE LEADING 800 INDIANS OF VARIOUS TRIBES IN BATTLE AGAINST 500 TEXANS. THE LAST ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CHEROKEES AND WHITES IN TEXAS.”
Standing near was a printed, yellowed paper notice printed by the American Indian Cultural Society of DeSoto, Texas. It tacked to a piece of plywood that was fixed to a pole in the ground. It read, “The Marker states that 800 Indians and 500 Texicans battled here. What isn’t stated is out of the 800 Indians, 400 to 600 were women, children and elders. Texicans Regular were a fully armed militia unit. Indians had only 16 to24 riffles and pistols. “
Wars require arms suppliers, arms manufacturers, soldiers, Generals, tacticians, agents, clerks, translators, food and clothing purveyors, shoe manufacturers, logicians, delivery personnel and if possible the majority of hearts and minds of the human pool of cannon fodder which is obtained by the work of rhetoricians and propagandists and distributed by any form of media extant at the time.
Above and behind all of these players, there must be, by necessity, people of immense power with insatiable appetites. Kings and Queens in the opening gambits and middle-game of any well played chess match wisely remain many arm’s lengths away from any perceivable connection to the conflict. Wars also require, in every case, financiers and bankers.
Adolphus Sterne was a Coahuila y Tejas colonist, a merchant, a legislator and a financier of the Texas Revolution. He was the eldest son of Emmanuel Sterne and his second wife, Helen. He was born on April 5, 1801, in Cologne, although Alsace is also claimed as his birthplace. The elder Sterne was an Orthodox Jew and Helen Sterne was a Lutheran and accordingly, Sterne grew up amid turmoil. At sixteen he was working in a Passport Office when he learned that he was going to be conscripted for military service. He forged a Passport for himself and immigrated to the United States.
He landed in New Orleans in 1817, found mercantile employment and studied law. Although he never practised law in Texas, he acted as a Land Agent and Primary Judge in Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas. While in New Orleans, Adolphus Sterne joined the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, an affiliation of great importance to him in later years. In the early 1820s he began an itinerant peddling trade in the country north of New Orleans. He used New Orleans as a base of operations from which he ranged as far north as Nashville, Tennessee. where he met Sam Houston.
The two men formed a lasting relationship which they renewed after Sterne established a mercantile house in Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas in 1826. Sam Houston arrived in Coahuila y Tejas six years later in 1832. Because Sterne had visited Nacogdoches in 1824, some records have fixed that year as the date of his arrival. Soon after moving to Nacogdoches, Sterne became involved with the Fredonian Rebellion. In spite of the required pledges of loyalty he had given for his immigration into Mexico, Sterne assisted Haden Edwards and other immigrants in their resistance to the Mexican government. Perhaps he did this in the spirit of Kol Nidre.
He smuggled guns and other materials in barrels of coffee. Mexican government spies in New Orleans alerted the Nacogdoches authorities to these activities and Sterne was arrested, tried for treason and sentenced to be shot. While his case was being reviewed in San Antonio and Saltillo, he was incarcerated in the good Old Stone Fort we have by now become familiar with in this essay.
Because his guards were also Free Masons, Adolphus came and went as he pleased and was eventually released on the promise that he would never again take up arms against the Mexican government. Sterne adhered to the letter of his promise but not to its spirit. He assisted the Texans in the battle of Nacogdoches in 1832 and financed two companies of troops during the Texas Revolution but did not personally again shoulder arms against the Mexican government. He studied law in Louisiana, remember?
Frequent business trips to New Orleans via Natchitoches, Louisiana brought Sterne into contact with Placide Bossier, a prominent businessman of that region. Sterne met his future wife, Eva Catherine Rosine Ruff on one of those visits. She was born on June 23, 1809 in Württemberg and had immigrated to Louisiana with her family in 1815. Both her parents died in a yellow fever epidemic soon after and the Ruff children were taken into the Bossier home.
With the assistance of the requirements of Mexican law, Eva succeeded in converting Sterne officially to the Catholic faith, although unofficially he remained a Deist. They were married on June 2, 1828. Sterne built their home on the Eastern edge of Nacogdoches, Coahuila y Tejas near the confluence of La Nana Bayou and Bonita Creek. The house was developed into a seat of hospitality for the leaders of the area. Seven children were born to them there. Sam Houston was one of many important guests in the Sternes' home. He boarded with them when he first arrived in Texas and was baptized a Catholic in their parlour. Mrs. Sterne served as Houston's godmother but Sterne did not serve as his godfather because the date coincided with Yom Kippur.
Sterne strongly supported the movement for Texas independence. He travelled to New Orleans in 1835 as a Special Agent of the Provisional Government where he personally raised and financed two companies of militia known as the New Orleans Greys, commanded by Thomas H. Breece and Robert C. Morris. He preceded Breece's unit to Coahuila y Tejas and arranged for a gala welcoming banquet when the troops arrived in Nacogdoches.
Adolphus later claimed nine hundred and fifty dollars against the Republic of Texas Treasury for his recruiting expenses on that occasion. He supported most of Sam Houston's programs during the period of the Republic of Texas with the exception of his benevolent Indian Policy. Sterne commanded a company of militia in the Battle of the Neches on July 16, 1839 and helped to expel the Cherokee.
Thus, we arrive at that sad ground again and I wish to mention at this juncture, that while all of the aforementioned machinations were fermenting like Sour Mash, the bulk, by far, of the Cherokee with Bowles and their allied tribes in Coahuila y Tejas (who were actually the refugee remnants of once large tribes, now far removed from their natural homes) were occupied primarily with growing crops, building houses and farms, spinning cloth, raising livestock, having children, caring for their elders and trying against all odds to mind their own business. They had already voluntarily withdrawn from the USA and left their ancestral lands.
On February 19, 1840, Sterne became Postmaster at Nacogdoches in the Republic of Texas, six months before Edward Burleson defeated the Comanche in the Battle of Plum Creek. Adolphus served as Deputy Clerk and Associate Justice of the County Court. In 1841 he became a Justice of the Peace. He was Deputy Clerk of the Board of Land Commissioners and Commissioner of Roads and Revenues for Nacogdoches County.
He served as a member of the Board of Health and was the Overseer of Streets for the Corporation of Nacogdoches. In 1847 he won an election to represent Nacogdoches in the House of Representatives of the Second Legislature. He continued during the Third Legislature and in 1851 advanced to the Senate of the Fourth Legislature. That was the year both Edward Burleson and John Marie Durst died.
Sterne was a member of many private organizations, especially Masonic ones. He enjoyed dancing and an occasional drink. He was fond of playing whist. Though he shared some of the faults of his day, including the keeping of slaves, as did some of the more wealthy of the Cherokee, history remembers him as an honest man. From September 28, 1840 to November 18, 1851, Sterne kept a diary of his daily activities which is a valuable source of information on that first years of the Republic of Texas. He owned a substantial amount of land. The 1840 census records estimated sixteen thousand acres. In his diary he always complained of not having enough "monay." Though self-educated, he served as Official Interpreter in English, French, Spanish, German, Yiddish, Portuguese and Latin. He died in New Orleans while on a business trip on March 27, 1852. He was briefly interred there and later reburied in Oak Grove Cemetery, Nacogdoches, Texas.
The Washington Monument is not the only Masonic obelisk in the United States of America. Texas has the grand San Jacinto Monument, which is actually fifteen feet taller than the Washington Monument and said to be the world’s tallest memorial column at five hundred and seventy feet. Every year in April, the people of Texas, many of them Masons, gather at the foot of the San Jacinto Monument near Houston to celebrate the Texas victory at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, which established independence for Texas.
Many Masons assumed leadership roles and were active in the birth of The Republic of Texas, such as: Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, William B. Travis, James Bowie, David Crockett, James Bonham, Ben Milam, David G. Burnet, James Fannin, Mirabeau B. Lamar, Anson Jones, Lorenzo de Zavala, Edward Burleson, Thomas Rusk, Juan Seguin and some of the less famous names mentioned in this article.
One of the eight inscriptions on the exterior base of the San Jacinto Monument reads: "Measured by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world. The freedom of Texas from Mexico won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War, resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma. Almost one-third of the present area of the American nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed sovereignty."
Indeed. The inscription bears reading twice and pondering long and hard. Secrets are secrets. Societies of men with secrets make it very difficult for the average person to ever understand history. Harpocrates, the god, himself was a planned combination of Egyptian and Hellenic gods adapted by design and for a specific purpose. The unschooled, while saving themselves from being tainted by the obfuscation of officially approved versions of history written by tethered minions, simply look for tracks in the sand, mud, dirt, blood or snow and draw their own conclusions.
The story of the Texas Cherokee, like so many others, is a tale of two kinds of men. One type simply accept that they have been given life and set about living it in open freedom without designing to control others or to ride on their backs. Another type remain in the background, on the peripheries, over the horizon, on the wind or in the Abyss, comfortably in control of all that is malleable with a jade hard ambition to dominate all that moves. It is my observation that greed and fear are very close relatives and the road to Hell is indeed paved with the good intentions of the guilty. This is our oldest human story and it is the only story.
In keeping with the analogy of a chess game in which the formation of Texas was a but a gambit, in my opinion the game is yet underway as you read this. If I have done my examination well and sketched out the attributes of some of the pieces of the first rank, one may get a flashing glimpse of the situational dynamics of the mid-game and gain an ability to discern the various possible end-game configurations. If I have managed to illustrate a few elementary techniques such as the pin, the fork, the skewer, castling and the sacrifice, one may begin to perceive what I call historical archetypes or footprints.
Efficient coordination of pieces is key and requires the touch of a Master. I think the true life example of the Texas Cherokee clearly illustrates the dynamics of the pawn, which can potentially become a Queen in only six moves. Remember that chess can be played with either an attacking style or by passively capitalizing and exploiting each small mistake made by an opponent until he defeats himself.
To close my examination of the early history of Texas and the Texas Cherokee, I will state that I had kin on both sides of this struggle and that this has taught me not to hate but rather to learn, to understand, to remember and to keep the story going forward. This essay is dedicated to my East Texas Cherokee grandmother, Bobbie Grundberg.
Sources:
Pitter's Cherokee Trails by Pat Talley and Philip Lamb
1837: Discourse of the Evidence of the American Indians being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israël - Mordecai M. Noah
-Walling, George Washington (1887). Recollections Of A New York Chief Of Police.
Caxton Book Concern, limited. p. 26.
Helen Burleson Kelso, “Burleson, Edward,” Handbook of Texas Online
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbu40, accessed January 20, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcf01 -accessed Sep.15, 2019.
Archie P. McDonald, "Sterne, Nicholas Adolphus," Handbook of Texas Online http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fst45 -accessed January 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
Robert Bruce Blake, "Hunter, John Dunn," Handbook of Texas Online http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhu33 -accessed January 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
John Dunn Hunter, by Samuel Goodrich from Curiosities of Human Nature.
Boston: Rand and Mann, 1849 [1843], pp. 236-253)
Dianna Everett, "Fields, Richard," Handbook of Texas Online
https://www.geni.com/people/Chief-Richard-Fields/6000000002873749346 -accessed 9/16/19
The Battle of San Jacinto
http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org/sanjacintotaylor.htm
-accessed Sep.15, 2019.
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