Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S.C. Gwynne

And fight them they did. The upshot of the Lamar presidency was an almost immediate war against all Indians in Texas. The summer of 1839 witnessed one of the most savage campaigns ever unleashed against Native Americans. The first target was the Cherokees, who had been pushed relentlessly westward over many decades from their homelands in the Carolinas. Many had landed in the piney woods and sandy riverbanks of east Texas, near the Louisiana border, where they had largely lived in peace with whites for almost twenty years. They were one of the five “civilized tribes,” and were indeed quickly absorbing the white man’s culture, dressing like whites, farming or running businesses, speaking English. The excuse for getting rid of them was a trumped-up charge that they were part of a Mexican-backed plot to drive the whites from Texas. It was almost certainly false, but it was all that Lamar and his secretary of war needed. Faced with the demand for his immediate departure from the state, Chief Bowles of the Cherokees agreed to leave if the government compensated his tribe for improvements they had made on the land. The Texans agreed in principle, but offered little, and talks soon broke down. Then, by plan, the soldiers moved in. Nine hundred of them. On July 15, 1839, they attacked a Cherokee village.11 On July 16 they cornered five hundred Cherokees in a dense thicket and swamp and proceeded to kill most of the men, including Chief Bowles. Two days later, the soldiers burned t...