55
WRITINGS OF 5AM HoUSTOl\", 1837-1841
To THE TEXAS SENATE 1 Executive Department, Texas, City of Houston, 21st May, 1838. To the Honorable Senate. Gentlemen= In compliance with a Resolution of your Honorable Body, of the 19th instant, I have the pleasure of returning an answer, and submitting such information, as has been within the power of the Executive to obtain, on the subject of our Indian Relations. The Executive is fully aware of the importance of th~ subject, and has long been impressed with a conviction that it was neces- sary for Congress to have some action upon it. The identity of the settlement of several tribes, with those of our citizens, has inculcated the necessity of establishing a system of policy towards those who are most civilized, and whose attention has been prin- cipally called to the pursuits of agriculture; while the wild tribes on our frontier, whose pursuits are different, will require a sys- tem of policy to be adopted towards them, which will secure to our citizens, peace and protection. 'Within the last three years, but little friendly intercourse has been had with those tribes. Their frequent depredations upon the lives and property of our citizens, admonish us, that they have not been our friends; their Tartar-like pursuits and habits of life have been such, as to prevent our reaching their communities, and, by retaliation, chastising them in such manner as to impress them with a conviction that it is more desirable to court our friendship than to provoke our hostility. When the Anglo-Saxon race first commenced their settlement in Texas, they found many small bands settled in the east of the Trinity river, who received them with kindness, and from that time to the present, have maintained with them, the most peace- ful relations. They had become inhabitants of the country by the countenance, and were recognized by the authorities of the Mexi- can Government in Texas. They had received the grants and concessions from that Government to an extent that induced them to believe, as well as the first white emigrants, that they were the lawful possessors of the soil ,vhich they inhabited, and the sec- tion of the country to which the tribes severally laid claim, with the exception of such grants of land as had been previously made to individuals by the Government of Spain and Mexico. We find as early as 1833, that the Ayuntamiento of the Munici- pality of Liberty, gave their assurance to the different bands of the Coosatie tribe, of their belief in the justice of the Indian
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