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TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1825-1843
last because intimately connected with important subjects to be discussed in this Report live also in the County of Nacogdoches on the waters of the Angelina, Neches, and Sabine rivers, they are about 220 in number, are farmers and hunters, raise stock, have some domestic manufactures, and read and write their own language Their War Chief is called Bowles Their Civil Chief is called Big Mush. They are a branch of the old nation of that name which they left some 40 or 50 years since setling first on the St Francis afterwards on the Arkansas river and finally about 15 years since in Texas. They are good riflemen and have elevated views of their own importance and claims. They also appear desirous of taking the lead and forming an union of the different tribes in Texas. They trade with and are now in continual communi- cation with the Praire Indians with whom untill the commence- ment of our revolution they were at war. These Cherokee in the event of war would feel the Horros of invasion in a degree very nearly equal to the whites as their Squaws and Children never leave their farms, which is also the case with a few Delaware and Shawnee. They would have no strongholds, no interminable thickets, or swamps to retire to, but would be forced to give battle or fly to the praries. In forming their Report to your honorable body in this sub- ject your committee deem that it is their duty to elucidate as nearly as possible the nature of the claims of these different tribes of Indians in the Republick on soil of Texas. And in mak- ing up their report your committee have been guided by a sin- cere and anxious wish to recommend that course of Policy that will redound to the Honor and safety of our Country as well as the securing to the Indians their just claims. Your Commit- tee are of Opinion that then actually vested rights which thP. different tribes of Indians now within our limits and invested with by the Mexican Govt previous to our declaration of Inde- pendence and which they have not subsequently forfeited by overt acts against the Peace of this Republick should be held sacred and inviolable. But Your Committee have not upon the most mature consid- eration and the most assiduous inquiry been able to ascertain that a vested right of any kind had accrued to or been obtained .by any tribe or tribes of Indians, other than the Prima Facia
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