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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1838
have been spoken and the winds shall not scatter them.-Re- rnember me and be happy with your Women and Children.- Winter is coming on, and cold weather, and you may be unhappy unless with your Women and Children.-Stay with them until the Spring comes, and you shall receive a talk from the Chief of this Nation.-You must not take up the Tomahawk, nor will I allow other men to raise it against you.- I send to you Wise Men to give you counsel.-Listen to them and walk in the Path they direct.-Tell your Young Men to stay at home, that they may not bring your Nations into trouble.- Old Men speak Wisdom, and Young Men should pursue their counsel.-He that stops his ear against instruction is a fool, and the Wise Men of his Nation should punish hirn.-There is light from the countenance of the Great Spirit upon the Good man, when he walketh in the straight Path.-But brush and darkness falleth in the way of him that walketh in the Path of crooked- ness. Sam Houston 12th Nov. 1838 [Endorsed] : Copy of Talk sent by General Houston to the Alabama and Coushatta Indians by Gen. T. J. Rusk Comg. T. Militia. 1 James H. Sta1·1· Collection, The University of Texas Library. In the House Journal, 3d Cong., 2d Sess., pages 93-94, there is an identical talk, undated, which the Joiwnal declares was sent to the Cherokees. 2 The infiltration of the Cherokee Indians with their associated bands had begun about 1823. At various times thereafter they sought a grant of land from the Mexican Government but were never successful in obtaining a tribal grant. (See The Q11a1·terly, Texas State Historical Association, VII, 95-98; also, "Documents Relating to the Grant of Lands to the Cherokee Tribe of Indians by the Mexican Government," Papers on Indian Affairs, Texas State Library.) At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, the provisional Texan govern- ment created a commission, consisting of Sam Houston, John Forbes, and John Cameron, to treat with the Cherokees; and it authorized these men to guarantee to the Indians such rights and claims as they had obtained from the Mexican Government. (See the treaty made with the Cherokees, Writings of Sam Houston, I, 358-360.) This treaty failed of ratification when the permanent government of the Texas Republic was established. . Following the opening of the Land Office in 1838, surveyors pushed into the Cherokee settlements and began surveying land for white claimants. The Indians retaliated with raids and depredations against the white men through- out 1837-1838. These depredations culminated in the so-called Cordova re- bellion, which, however, was crushed with the defeat of the combined Indian and Mexican forces at the battle :Jf Kickapoo Village, October lG, 1838. The
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