Cherokee Exodus from Texas

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, the Cherokee didn't arrive in East Texas by accident. They'd been driven out of the eastern states by white settlers — pushed west, then pushed again, the way a river finds the lowest ground whether it wants to or not.

By 1820 they were established in the East Texas area, and in 1822 they went looking for something that ought to have been simple: a legal title to the land they were already living on. They asked Mexico. Mexico said no.

So the years rolled on, and what settled in between the Cherokees and the Texans wasn't exactly peace — it was a truce. An uneasy one, and gettin' more uneasy all the time. Then came 1839.

Mirabeau B. Lamar, president of the Republic of Texas, sent down his orders. The tribe was to leave Texas.

That's the kind of order that doesn't leave much room for conversation. What followed was a battle, northwest of where this marker stands, on July 15th and 16th. Two Texans were killed.

Eighteen Indians were killed — among them Chief Bowles, who was eighty-one years old. Eighty-one years old. The remaining Indians retreated into what is now Oklahoma.

That's the whole story in a few lines of stone. Driven out once, established again, denied title, tolerated barely, then ordered out — and when it came to it, Chief Bowles at eighty-one years old didn't go quietly. The marker doesn't say much more than that.

Sometimes it doesn't have to.

What the marker says

Driven from eastern states by white settlers, Cherokee Indians migrated to the East Texas area, becoming established by 1820. In 1822, they unsuccessfully sought title to their land from Mexico. The years following were ones of an increasingly uneasy truce for both Texans and Cherokees. In 1839, Mirabeau B. Lamar, Republic of Texas president, sent orders for the tribe to leave Texas. In July 15-16 battle northwest of here two Texans and eighteen Indians, including Chief Bowles (aged 81), were killed. The remaining Indians retreated into what is now Oklahoma.