Moving to Arkansas (1800s)
Many of those moving west of the Mississippi fostered the desire to be free of the everyday annoyance of the lying, stealing, and murdering white man and Cherokee. Most wanted to retain their traditional culture and religion. Most preferred the capacity to hunt, fish, ranch, and farm as far from the white man as he could be.
In May 1792, a group of Cherokees contacted Estevan Miro, the Spanish governor of the Louisiana Territory, and received permission to settle in Spanish territory west of the Mississippi River.”17 One of the first to leave east of the Mississippi was The Bowl who was allowed to settle on the St Francis river. The Promised Land: The Cherokees, Arkansas, and Removal, 1794 – 1839 identifies these early emigrants were Chickamauga Cherokees, also known as the Lower Towns Cherokees, who resisted assimilation and sought to retain traditional religious and hunting traditions.18 Thomas Jefferson in writing to the Chickamauga leaders that he would trade land with them in the east for lands in the west was too good to pass up.
“As cessions of Cherokee land continued at frequent intervals during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the number of Cherokees emigrating to Arkansas increased. Many of the new arrivals settled further west, between the Arkansas and White river valleys. The Cherokee population in this region grew so rapidly that in 1805 John B. Treat opened a trading post at Spadra Bluff, near present-day Clarksville, to serve the emigrants. A land cession obtained by the federal government from the Osages in 1808 (negotiated in St. Louis by William Clark, the renowned explorer) opened vast tracts of land in the northwest part of the state. Between 1809 and 1812, approximately 2,000 Cherokees settled along the White River and in the Arkansas River valley upstream from Little Rock.”19
On July 20 1809, Tahlonteskee and seventeen followers came upriver to Hiwassee and presented Meigs with a list of Lower Town Cherokees who wished to move over the Mississippi under the conditions agreed upon with President Jefferson in Washington. Jefferson encouraged the Chickamauga to go West because Blount was prepared to send in the militias to quell the civil war between the Chickamauga and the various Cherokee Nations. The list was a long one of 1,023 people, including 386 men and 637 women and children. Later, an additional 107 Cherokees joined the group as it made preparations to move.20 That included 1,273 black cattle, 369 horses, 868 hogs, 46 spinning wheels, 13 looms, 36 plows, and other smaller items. They also took along 68 black slaves.21
Tahlonteskee’s group settled mostly south of the Arkansas with his capital city near Dardanelle, on the Illinois Bayou. Major William Lovely, “arrived on the Arkansas the following July to establish a Cherokee sub agency at the mouth of Illinois Bayou. He was delighted with the country, dubbing it the "Garden of the Worlds." But, he pointed out, “We have to pound the Corn into Meal having no Mills in all this part of the World every Article is Scarce & very high, flower which is brought by the traders on the Mississippi is from $18 to $24 per barrel.”22 Most of the Chickamauga chiefs who arrived in Arkansas after 1809 settled south of the Arkansas because Jefferson’s letter did not deny them from settling there. The most important factor of the offering of the letter for trade of land was that it was not an official treaty between the United States and the Chickamauga.
In 1817, both the U.S. Senate and President Monroe gave advance approval of the objectives of a contemplated treaty to officially sanction a Cherokee reserve in the west. Although some of the most powerful eastern chiefs, such as Pathkiller, an adamant opponent of the treaty, were not in attendance, Andrew Jackson on July 8, 1817, secured all the Cherokee signatures he needed to accomplish the deal.23 The Treaty of 1817, provided for the Chickamauga an official treaty land in Arkansas. It references back to the Thomas Jefferson letter to Tahlonteskee and provides additional lands to the lands that they already reserved under the Thomas Jefferson letter.
“The Treaty of 1817 had sweeping ramifications for Cherokees living on both sides of the Mississippi River. Because Pathkiller and several other prominent Eastern Cherokees, such as John Ross and Major Ridge, did not participate in the negotiations of the treaty, many members of the eastern band contested its legitimacy and the Cherokee council refused to ratify it. The council also continued to oppose splitting the tribal annuity with the Arkansas group -- called for in the treaty’s fourth article -- and unrealistically demanded that the Arkansas Cherokees return to their ancestral homelands. Despite the protests, federal officials proceeded as if the treaty were a done deal. For all practical purposes, it was. Jackson, ever the proponent of American expansionism, believed the treaty offered “justice to all,” and in truth his opinion mattered the most.”24
While the treaty was agreeable to the Chickamauga, there was one thing missing, the “Clear opening to the setting of the sun” that was promised in the text of the treaty. “ln August 1819 the Western Cherokees wrote to President James Monroe requesting the "clear opening to the setting of the sun" that had been promised them. The lead signers of the letter were Takatoka, Dick Justice, Glass, and John Jolly, followed by John McLemore, Walter Webber, Thomas Maw (son of Hanging Maw), and Thomas Graves.25
As a result of the 1809 Jefferson letter offering a land trade, many of the Chiefs took their people south of the Arkansas River and settled there while others moved north. The lands in the south along with the “clear opening to the setting of the sun” were promises made by the United States to the Chickamauga. The Treaty of 1819 removed the “clear opening to the setting sun.” An 1820s US Geological survey map specifically defines the lands south of the Little Rock to the Red River as “Cherokee” but again, the Chickamauga noted that the U.S. was moving boundary markers so white people could covet and steal their lands. The Quapaw ceded lands in Arkansas to the United States and the United States ceded those lands to the Chickamauga.
In 1826 the Arkansas Cherokee passed a law making it a capital offense for selling or trading lands to the United States or to white men. In 1828 a, “delegation comprised of Black Fox, John Rogers, Tom Graves, Thomas Maw, George Marvis, John Looney, and Sequoyah . . . traveled to Washington to “arrange and finally adjust with the President of the United States or others all the unsettled matters”26 of Lovely’s Purchase relating to the 1817 and 1819 Treaties.
There was certainly no intention by the Cherokee council that this delegation should become involved in a treaty that would trade away their Arkansas lands; nor had the delegation any such thoughts. But once they reached Washington, the Cherokees were detained in their hotel for well over a month while government officials cajoled, whiskeyed, and bribed them into signing an agreement for exchanging their Arkansas land for that of Lovely's Purchase.27
The 1828 Treaty would be considered an illegal contract today because the signatories would have been intoxicated and incapable of giving consent. In addition, “the government bribery included twelve hundred dollars for Thomas Graves; five hundred dollars for George Guess, plus rights to a saline on Lees Creek of present Oklahoma to replace one in Arkansas; and five hundred dollars to James Rogers. It must be assumed that the others were similarly rewarded.”28
After 1828, it became necessary for the Chickamauga to hide in plain sight. Most had lived in “white homes and clothes” for decades and it was hard to tell many apart from their white neighbors. Then, in 1837, Arkansas codified their own anti-miscegenation laws forbidding Indians or blacks to marry whites. The Chickamauga in Arkansas had been marrying whites for decades and now the ownership of lands of mixed marriages became almost impossible.
In Missouri, the Thirteenth General Assembly enacted, “An Act to Restrain Intercourse with Indians,” which made it illegal for Indians to be within the state. Indians: Subsection 2. No person shall give to any Indian a permit to come or remain within this state; nor a permit, or other instrument of writing, with the intent to induce any Indian to come or remain within this state, except the proper agent, under the authority of the United States. Subsection 11, It shall be the duty of the Governor to transmit a copy of this act to the agents of all the Indian tribes on the borders of this state, with a request to such agents not to grant a permit to any Indian to come into this state for the purpose of hunting, or without necessary business, or who is not of a peaceful character.29
These laws drove the Chickamauga not only to hide in plain sight, it forced them to declare on the U.S. Census that they were white. Accounts from hundreds of Chickamauga families today tell an ominous story of their ancestors. The families told their children to never talk about their ancestry out of fear that they would lose their homes and land or even worse, be killed for their land and homes. While the secret was safe in public settings, the Chickamauga continued to the best of their abilities to retain their culture, religion, and language. Most have retained governmental allegiance to bands and tribes of Chickamauga over the centuries while keeping their affiliations secret from the outside world. Over the almost 200 years since the Treaty of 1828 and the statehood of Arkansas, there are a limited few which have been able to retain the religion and even fewer language speakers left. Many family reunions and gatherings of the Chickamauga today still instill many of the aspects of the culture. Even so, technological advances and inculcation into the American society as a whole is devastating the remaining cultural identity of being a Chickamauga.
Following Spanish Protection to Texas (1820s– 1830s)
Chief Duwali Bowles is one of the most colorful Chiefs of the Chickamauga. He was born in North Carolina sometime around 1756 and became Chief of the Lower Town, Running Water in 1792. In 1794 he is involved in what has been come to be known as the Muscle Shoals massacre. He then immediately traveled up the St. Francis River from Arkansas and into Southeastern Missouri under the protection of the Spanish Crown. While in Missouri, he joined other Chickamauga immigrants that had crossed the Mississippi River. “Why are they Chickamauga?” some will ask. There are two specific reasons. The first, he could not have been the Chief at Running Water had he not been Chickamauga. Second, no Cherokee would move across the Mississippi because to do so would mean that they would immediately forfeit their Citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. Knowing more about the background and culture of the Chickamauga and Cherokee assists in putting together the history of both people.
After the New Madrid Earthquake, he took it as a sign from God that he was to move his people to a safer place so he moved to the White River lower down that the 1817 and 1819 treaties covered, but the 1909 Land trade with Jefferson allowed and covered as reservation land. Chief Bowles was always on the move seeking less occupied lands for his people. After traveling and stopping in the Arkansas River Valley near Petit Jean River and traveling again south of Mt. Magazine, through the Ouachita Mountains and then finally to the Red River near the Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas borders, at Pecan Point, he finally settled for lands just north of Nacogdoches.
In November 8, 1822 he and Chief Big Mush gained protection with a grant of land totaling 1,500,000 acres from the Spanish crown in the Treaty of San Antonio de Bexar.
The Cherokee Nation, according to their statement, numbers fifteen thousand souls; but there are within the borders of Texas only one hundred warriors and two hundred women and children. They work for their living, and dress in cotton-cloth, which they themselves manufacture. They raise cattle and horses and use firearms. Many of them understand the English language. In my opinion, they ought to be useful to the Province, for they immediately became subject to its laws, and I believe will succeed in putting a stop to carrying stolen animals to the United States, and in arresting those evil-doers that infest the roads.30
While protection was agreed to by a land grant from Spain, Mexico gained its independence and the new government agreed to continue the protection of the Chickamauga. They lived there and farmed and ranched the lands, but the illusive treaty for ownership of the land alluded them.
The tribe at present numbers about 150 families, the total number of persons being about 800. The property of the Cherokees, consisting of about 3,000 head of cattle; about the same number of hogs and 500 or 600 horses. The subscribers inform you that the said tribe lives chiefly by tilling the soil and raising cattle.31
On February 23, 1836, Chickamauga Chief Duwali Bowles signed the Treaty of Bowles Village with Sam Houston for the 1,5000,000 acres in East Texas that the Chickamauga had worked so hard to attain. The Bronze Sculpture commemorating the Signing of the Treaty still stands In Nacogdoches, Texas as documented by the Texas State Historical Association.32
In 1839 Duwali asked his friend Tahchee to convince the National Council in Tahlequah to send warriors to help him in Texas and to being the Creek and Seminole. He informed Tahchee that the Mexicans said if they conquered Texas, General Vincente Filisola would give them the land in the region.33 The Council debated Duwali’s request and decided not to help the Cherokees in Texas ordering none of their young men to leave. 34 This abandonment demonstrated again that the Cherokee Nation could not be trusted and led to furthered ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Cherokee and the Texans.
Chief Bowles and Chief Big Mush knew that the outcome of Lamar’s “termination war” against the Indians in Texas would ultimately end in the brutal removal of the Indians out of Texas. The Texas Cherokee: A People Between Two Fires, 1819 – 1840 documents where Duwali was disavowed by the Cherokee in Oklahoma saying that Chief Bowles and his people were not of their people. Feeling betrayed by the Cherokee of Oklahoma, betrayed by the government of his great friend Sam Houston, and out of time on this earth, Duwali went into a battle he knew he could not win. His young Chiefs drug him into a battle like he had done so many times as a younger man. To set the example for his warriors, the Chief led one final battle as a warrior Chief.
The Texan Army numbered only 500, compared to 700 to 800 Indians, but Bowles' warriors were routed, and pursuit continued until July 24. The old chief, wearing a handsome sword and sash given him by Sam Houston, remained in the field on horseback for two days. On the last day, he signaled retreat, but few of his men were left to flee. Bowles was shot in the leg and his horse was wounded. As he climbed from his mount, he was shot in the back.
As the Texas militia approached him, he sat down, crossed his arms and legs facing the soldiers, and waited for his death. The captain of the militia walked to where Bowles sat, placed a pistol to his head, and killed him. The Texans took stripes of skin from his arm as souvenirs. His body was left where it lay. No burial ever took place.35