TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1846-1859
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identity, and may be considered as merged into the common stock. The Caddo formerly resided on the Red River of Louisi- ana, above Natchitoches and below the Great Raft, and were included in the jurisdiction of the Indian Agency stationed in 1819 at Natchitoches. They removed to Texas a few years ago, and now claim to be Texas Indians. The Caddo, Cherokee, Shawnee, Delaware, Kickapoo, and some others, parts of tribes, who have been allured into Texas by the amenity of its climate, the abundance of its game, and its com- paratively waste condition, are altogether intruders here; and had no right of habitation, until the late government of Texas, with great folly and indiscretion, entered 'into a treaty with several of them in 1844. By this unwise act, which would have proven vastly more mischievous if the country had remained in separate independence than it now can do, those bands acquired a sanction to their intrusion and a right of settlement, irrespec- tive of numbers; and their numbers would in all probability have been alarmingly increased by immigration from the north- ern tribes of the United States. Annexation has arrested this evil, and saved Texas from a dangerous influx of the most dis- satisfied, loose, and savage of the several tribes from which the first intruders proceeded. And still it is believed they are con- stantly accumulating; and they are now thrown, by a silly and improvident policy of the government of the late Republic, upon the State of Texas and her territory. That they are tenants without title, and hold only at the will of the government, does not divest them of a recognised right of residence, to which tkey naturally attach a right of soil. Their peaceable removal, which the tranquillity of the State will soon require, is prac- ticable only by the Federal Government. Although the subject is not comprised in the queries pro- pounded by the department, I will suggest that the future peace and happiness of the large inland frontier of Texas requires an early intervention of the General Government, to adjust our complex Indian relations. It is quite impossible for the State, acting within her limited sovereignty, to control and peaceably dispose of the various tribes resident within her territorial limits. The entire subjugaton of the Comanche in particular, and probably of other tribes, or their early removal, will be in- evitable. The spread of our population will, in a very few years, so crowd upon the Comanche ancient hunting-grounds, as to compel them either to recede westward or to resist by arms
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