844
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ·ASSOCIATION.
are our nigh neighbors and that the mutual convenience and interest of the settlers as well as of those Indians requires that the. most perfect friendship .and harmony should prevail between them, and that a clean commercial intercourse should be established and kept up between this Colony and those Indians which it has been repre- sented is the sincere wish and desire of the chief of those tribes. , Therefore I Stephen F. Austin Lieut Col of Militia Empresario of this Colony charged with the administration of its civil affairs and the preservation of good order do by these presents appoint as Commissioners to ,visit said Indians on the part of the inhabitants of this Colony and to represent to them that our objects in settling in this country -are purely of an agricul- tural nature, that we have settled tmder the authority and by the permission of the Supreme powers of the Mexican nation, that we view all the Indians tribes as our friends and -brothers and wish to live in peace and trade ;freely with all, and as the ,v ecos and their neighbors and the Mexicans have always been friends we wish to establish a :friendly understanding with them and offer them our hands as brothers, who will be always willing to trade with them and receive them as our friends· -and that there may arise no mis- understanding on the subject the settlers. have sent up the said to talk with. them and forµi a lasting treaty '>f peace and friendship for ever-
AUSTIN TO w ACO INDIANS: A TALlt
[June-, 1824.] I call you brothers because the chiefs of your nation who canie to the Colorado about 3 :Moons ago told the Americans who live there that the ,v ecos and Tawakanes were friends and .wished to be at' peace with them- The Americans and Wecos have always been friends and met and parted .like brothers and so they ought always to be-and so the Americans always wish to be-but some bad men of the ,v ecos or some of their friends last year spilt blood in the path which had be- fore then been always clean, J. T. 1 one of onr people was murdered on the Guadalupe by Indians who said they were ,v ecos-he was much beloved by the Americans and they all cried out for revenge-and I intended to have made a campain ·a·gainst your towns to revenge the murder for the Americans will never suffer.any of their people to be killed or robbed without punishing the murderers or the robbers but I heard of the words of your chiefs on the Colorado, that they wished
i J'obn Tumlinson.
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