WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1839
340
even this with patience, until they were peremptorily ordered to leave the country. When the Cherokees were at home and at peace, it was thought necessary to keep a post within their territory-now when a bloody" war may be anticipated, all the troops are removed from that section of country. Under the last administratio12., but forty thousancl clollars had been appropriated- now millions had been placed at the disposal of the executive, and there was not a post upon the border, except one built by the Milam guards, which he had been informed by an honorable Senator, had saved the settlements on the upper Brazos. He would again repeat that he hoped members would separate this question from all party feeling and decide alone upon the merits of the bill. [ Mr. Kaufman speaks.] MR. HOUSTON asked the gentleman to read the next sentence. Mr. Kaufman. MR. HOUST'ON remarked that the gentleman was mistaken- no Empresario contracts had been granted in the Cherokee country. Mr. Kaufman, Mr. Parker, Mr. Hansford, Mr. Gant speak. MR. HOUSTON said if he could be so fortunate as to convince this House that the Indian did own the land, he should conceive that he had done some service to his country. He was convinced they did own it, and he thought he could make it manifest to Congress; but he would advocate no claim not recognized by the laws of his country. He would go back as far as the year 1822, when the Indians were the sole occupants of the Country between the Sabine and the Angelina. There was then but two or three white men be- tween that country .and Santa Fe; and the Indians bad been placed there by the authority of the Mexican government, as a cordon of posts to protect them against the encroachments of the North Americans. They were received on better terms, and the Mexicans expected to derive more advantage from them than they did from the colonization of our own countrymen. He had long known that the land now proposed to be section- ized and sold, was the exclusive property of the Cherokees; and it was not liable to location under any of our land laws, and con- sequently all the locations that had been made are null and void.
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