394
TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
posed to mischief, was an early objrct of my contemplation. Their ingress to the Country had excited many serious apprehensions in the minds of the earliest settlers; and their continued increase by accession from their kindred tribes, was calculated to increase the inquietudes of those who best understood the natural tendencies of such an emigra- tion. It required no peculiar prescience to know that the savages of the North migrating to Texas, would find more congenial associations in a political Union with l\fexico, than in any relations they could be permitted to sustain with the more refined and intelligent Colonists from the United States; Their utter destitution of moral principle & indiffernce to all the obligations of social & political virtue will readily account for this preferance, & the perfidy which attended its manifesta- tion. for their hatred to the Americans, is an inheritance bequeathed & transmitted with sedulous care from sire to sun [sic]; from one gen- eration to another. It 'was no matter for wonder, therefore, that the Cherokees were found taking sides against us; but it is a cause of especial estonishmt [ sic J as well as of abhorence & disgust that there should be found amongst our own people any so dead to humanity so hostile to civilized life and ·insensible to their Country's security, peace & happiness as to take sides with these savages against their rights of their own fellow citizens & to foster & protect them in their presumptuous attempts to erect and mantain a seperate & independent Republic within the limits and upon the territory of our own county- The several disclosures 37 made by the intercepted letters 38 from th':' Mexican Authorities to the Chiefs of the Cherokees and others, rendereil a longer toleration of these faithless savages amongst us utterly in- compatible with the tranquility & safety of the Eastern frontier. The presence of those warlike bands who had acquired some of the mos! pernicious arts of civilization, contributed largely to nourish the vain hopes of Mexico, that an eventual oYerthrow of our institutions wa& practicable, and to diYert her meditations from the obvious and reciprocal advantages which a peace would confer upon her and upon us; and it was therefore calculated to protract a war from which we desire nothing but what we were resolved, at its beginning to attain. It became per- fectly eYident, that whenever the mexicans could find sufficient repose from domestic discords, to march an army into Texas, the Cherokees, and others whom they could interest, would simultaneously raise the tomehawk in the east, in union with their exterminating squadrons from the west. For this Government to have supinely waited the full de- velopmnt of such a scheme of carnage & devastation, might haYe com- ported with the feelings & policy of those whose sympathies were stronger for the savages than for their own natural brethren; but it would have been on the part of those entrusted with the destinies of the country worse than folly and madness-it would have exhibited not- a guilty indifference to the well being of Texas but a shocking moral treason against ties of blood, religion and all the sacred principles of nature. But I did not could not so wait. Prompt and energetic mea8- ures were taken to crush the barberous hopes and prevent the sanguinary projects of our Mexican foe, by expelling their savage auxiliaries from
"See no. 1529. "See note" in no. 1529.
Powered by FlippingBook