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166
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
to the white men, and that all the Indian troubles were caused by the white man's aggressions, and that the majority of the Indians were more honest, truthful, and honorable, than were the whites. Before the Texas Legislature convened in 1848, it was rumored that New Mexico was trying to establish a state government, whereupon the legislature passed a law to reorganize the Santa Fe County into four smaller counties- Santa Fe, Presidio, EI Paso, and Worth-[See Gammel, Laws of Texas, III, 462--463], and a few days later another law was passed providing that each new county should be divided into districts, adequate officials to be elected to maintain jurisdiction over the territory, and the state officials to be· in- formed when the work had been done. [See Ibid., pp. 464-465.] Neighbors was appointed to do this work, and was on the job by the first of February, 1850. All the western part of Texas was uncharted, and before Neighbors could effect a great deal, a road had to be surveyed and opened up from San Antonio to El Paso, so that the necessary materials and supplies for the new undertaking could be conveyed to the far west. This road was sur- veyed and opened by Robert S. Neighbors and Colonel John S. Ford, (See John S. Ford's Journal, MS., Texas University Library.) in 1849. By June, 1850, El Paso county had been organized with adequate officials for its administration, but there the work had to stop, because the United States officials were in control of the territory comprising the other proposed coun- ties, and they disputed the Texan ownership of the territory. It was futile to attempt to carry on the organization of the counties without a strong military force. Seeing the hopelessness of being able to carry out his commission, Neighbors returned to San Antonio. In the summer of 1851 he was a candidate for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, .as representative from Bexar and Medina counties. He was elected, and took his seat on November 3, 1851. On the next day he was elected teller by the House, and was placed on two' important com- mittees, and was made chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs (Ho11se JottnUJ,l, 4th Leg., 1st Sess., pp. 15-16). His: work on this committee was outstanding, and later resulted in the establishment of Indian 1·eservations in Texas. In 1852, Neighbors was a Presidential elector, chosen by the Democratic party (E. W. Winkler, Beginnings of Political Party O,·ganiza-- tions in Texas, 18-26), and on may 9, 1853, he was appointed United States Indian Agent in Texas, and instructed to locate and to survey Indian reserva- tions in Texas as provided for by a Texas state law. (See Gammel, III, 1019; also the Congres~ional Globe, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., 1853-1854, Part 2, p. 996.) The United States War Department ordered Captain R. B. Marcy to work with Neighbors on this project. They made the surveys, established the limits of the reservations, and lived among the Indians, in order to influence them to accept the lands selected for them by the government. But after the Indians had been induced to settle on the surveyed lands, and had been gathered for the peaceful removal to them, the 1·ed tape of the government held up the project so long that the Indians lost confidence in the promises made to them and more than 2000 of those who were 1·eady to move scattered throughout the old hunting grounds. Finally those who had remained were duly settled on the ~eservations and it was hoped that the scattered bands would come back and settle. In the spring and summer of 1859, Neighbors was winding up his work on the project of settling Texas Indians on the reservations. He had also promised himself and his family
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