Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet Part 24

Towards evening, as we were taking our meal, we were visited by a band of dogs, who, stopping ten yards from us, began to bark most furiously.

Thinking at first they belonged to the band of robbers, who employed them to follow travellers, we hastily seized our arms, and prepared for a fight; but Gabriel a.s.serting the dogs were a particular breed belonging to the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and other tribes of half-civilised Indians, established upon the Red River, we began shouting and firing our rifles, so as to guide towards us the Indians, whom we presumed could not be far behind their dogs. We did not wait long, for a few minutes afterwards a gallant band of eighty Cherokees dashed through the cover, and reined up their horses before us. All was explained in a moment.

A system of general depredation had been carried on, for a long while with impunity, upon the plantations above the great bend of the Red River. The people of Arkansas accused the Texians, who, in their turn, a.s.serted that the parties were Indians. Governor Yell, of the Arkansas, complained to Ross, the highly talented chief of the Cherokees, who answered that the robbers were Arkansas men and Texians, and, as a proof of his a.s.sertion, he ordered a band to scour the country, until they had fallen in with and captured the depredators. For the last two days, they had been following some tracks, till their dogs, having crossed the trail left by the lawyers and their prisoners, guided the warriors to our encampments.

We gave them all our prisoners, whom we were very glad to get rid of; and the Indian leader generously ordered one of his men to give up his horse and saddle to the parson. To this, however, we would not consent, unless we paid for the animal; and each of us subscribing ten dollars, we presented the money to the man, who certainly did not lose by the bargain.

The next morning, the leader of the Cherokee party advised me to take a southern direction, till we should arrive at the head waters of the river Sabine, from whence, proceeding either northward or eastward, we should, in a few days, reach the Red River, through the cane-brakes and the clearings of the new settlers. Before parting, the Indians made us presents of pipes and tobacco, of which we were much in want; and after a hearty breakfast, we resumed our journey.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

The Cherokee Indians, a portion of whom we had just met on such friendly terms, are probably destined to act no inconsiderable part in the future history of Texas. Within the last few years, they have given a severe lesson to the governments of both Texas and the United States. The reader is already aware that, through a mistaken policy, the government of Was.h.i.+ngton have removed from several southern states those tribes of half-civilised Indians which indubitably were the most honourable and industrious portion of the population of these very states. The Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Choctaws, among others, were established on the northern banks of the Red River, in the territory west of the Arkansas.

The Cherokees, with a population of twenty-four thousand individuals; the Creeks, with twenty thousand, and the Choctaws, with fifteen, as soon as they reached their new country, applied themselves to agriculture, and as they possessed wealth, slaves, and cattle, their cotton plantations soon became the finest west from the Mississippi, and latterly all the cotton grown by the Americans and the Texians, within one hundred miles from the Indian settlements, has been brought up to their mills and presses, to be cleaned and put into bales, before it was s.h.i.+pped to New Orleans. Some years before the Independence of Texas, a small number of these Cherokees had settled as planters upon the Texian territory, where, by their good conduct and superior management of their farms, they had acquired great wealth, and had conciliated the good will of the warlike tribes of Indians around them, such as the Cushates, the Caddoes, and even the Comanches.

As soon as the Texians declared their independence, their rulers, thinking that no better population could exist in the northern districts than that of the Cherokees, invited a few hundred more to come from the Red River, and settle among them; and to engage them so to do, the first session of congress offered them a grant of two or three hundred thousand acres of land, to be selected by them in the district they would most prefer. Thus enticed, hundreds of wealthy Cherokee planters migrated to Texas, with their wealth and cattle. Such was the state of affairs until the presidency of Lamar, a man utterly unequal to the task of ruling over a new country.

Under his government, the Texians, no longer restrained by the energy and honourable feelings of an Austin or a Houston, followed the bent of their dispositions, and were guilty of acts of barbarism and cruelty which, had they, at the time, been properly represented to the civilised people of Europe, would have caused them to blot the name of Texas out of the list of nations.

I have already related the ma.s.sacre of the Comanches in San Antonio, and the miserable pilfering expedition to Santa Fe, but these two acts had been preceded by one still more disgraceful.

The Cherokees, who had migrated to Texas, were flouris.h.i.+ng in their new settlement, when the bankruptcy of the merchants in the United States was followed by that of the planters. The consequence was, that from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, hundreds of planters smuggled their negroes and other property into Texas, and as they dared not locate themselves too far west, from their dread of the Mexicans and Indians, they remained in the east country, upon the rivers of which only, at that time, navigation had been attempted.

These new comers, however, had to struggle with many difficulties; they had to clear the ground, to build bridges, to dry up mud-holes and swamps; and, moreover, they found that they could not enter into compet.i.tion with the Cherokees, who having been established there for a longer time, and raising abundant crops of maize, cotton, and tobacco, were enabled to sell their provisions at one-half the price which the white planter wished to realise. The Europeans, of course, preferred to settle near the Cherokees, from whom they could obtain their Indian corn at fifty cents a bushel, while the American planters demanded two dollars and sometimes three. In a short time, the Cherokee district became thickly settled, possessing good roads, and bridges and ferries upon every muddy creek; in short, it was, in civilisation, full a century ahead of all the other eastern establishments of Texas.

The Texian planters from the United States represented to the government that they would have no chance of cultivating the country and building eastern cities, as long as the Cherokees were allowed to remain; and, moreover, they backed their pet.i.tion with a clause showing that the minimum price the Cherokee land would be sold at to new comers from the United States was ten dollars an acre. This last argument prevailed, and in spite of the opposition of two or three honest men, the greedy legislators attacked the validity of the acts made during the former presidency; the Cherokees' grant was recalled, and notice given to them that they should forth with give up their plantations and retire from Texas.

To this order, the Cherokees did not deign to give an answer, and, aware of the character of the Texians, they never attempted to appeal for justice; but, on the contrary, prepared themselves to defend their property from any invasion. Seeing them so determined, the Texians'

ardour cooled a little, and they offered the Indians twelve cents an acre for their land, which proposition was not attended to; and probably the Cherokees, from the fear which they inspired, would never have been molested had it not been for an act of the greatest cowardice on the part of the Texian government, and a most guilty indifference on that of the United States.

In Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas, labour had fallen so low, that thousands of individuals had abandoned their farms to become horse-thieves and negro smugglers. Many among them had gone to sell the produce of their depredations to the Cherokees, who not only did not condescend to deal with them, but punished them with rigour, subjecting them to their own code of laws. These ruffians nurtured plans of vengeance which they dared not themselves execute, but, knowing the greedy spirit of their countrymen, they spread the most incredible stories of Cherokee wealth and comforts. The plan succeeded well, for as soon as the altercation between the Texians and Cherokee Indians was made known to the Western States, several bands were immediately formed, who, in the expectation of a rich booty, entered Texas, and offered the Congress to drive away the Cherokees. As soon as this was known, representations were made by honourable men to the government of the United States, but no notice was taken, and the Western States, probably to get rid at once of the sc.u.m of their population, gave every encouragement to the expedition.

For a few months the Cherokees invariably discomfited their invaders, destroying their bands as soon as they were newly formed, and treating them as common robbers; but, being farmers, they could not fight and cultivate their ground at the same time, and they now thought of abandoning so unhospitable a land; the more so as, discovering that the Cherokees were more than a match for them in the field, a system of incendiarism and plunder was resorted to, which proved more disastrous to the Cherokees than the previous open warfare.

The Cherokees wisely reflected, that as long as the inhabitants of the Western States would entertain the hope of plunder and booty, they would constantly pour upon them their worthless population. They, therefore, destroyed their farms and their bridges; and collecting their horses and cattle, they retreated upon the Red River among their own people. The Cherokee campaign is a topic of much boasting among the Texians, as they say they expelled the Indians from their country; but a fact, which they are not anxious to publish, is, that for every Cherokee killed, twenty Texians bit the dust.

Since that period the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks have had several war councils, and I doubt not that they are only waiting for an opportunity to retaliate, and will eventually sweep off the entire eastern population of Texas.

The fact is, that a democratic form of government is powerless when the nation is so utterly depraved. Austin, the father of Texian colonisation, quitted the country in disgust. Houston, whose military talents and well-known courage obtained for him the presidency, has declared his intention to do the same, and to retire to the United States, to follow up his original profession of a lawyer. Such is the demoralised state of Texas at the present moment; what it may hereafter be is in the womb of Time.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

We had now entered the white settlements of the Sabine river, and found, to our astonishment, that, far from arriving at civilisation, we were receding from it; the farms of the Wakoes and well-cultivated fields of the p.a.w.nee-Picts, their numerous cattle and comfortable dwellings, were a strong contrast to the miserable twelve-feet-square mud-and-log cabins we pa.s.sed by. Every farmer we met was a perfect picture of wretchedness and misery; their women dirty and covered with rags, which could scarcely conceal their nudity; the cattle lean and starving; and the horses so weak, that they could scarcely stand upon their legs.

Where was the boasted superiority of the Texians over the Indian race?

or were these individuals around us of that cla.s.s of beings who, not daring to reside within the jurisdiction of the law, were obliged to lead a borderer's life, exposed to all the horrors of Indian warfare and famine? Upon inquiry, we discovered that these frontier men were all, more or less, eminent members of the Texian Republic, one being a general, another a colonel; some speakers of the House of Representatives; and many of them members of Congress, judges, and magistrates. Notwithstanding their high official appointments, we did not think it prudent to stop among them, but pushed on briskly, with our rifles across the pommels of our saddles; indeed, from the covetous eyes which these magistrates and big men occasionally cast upon our horses and saddle-bags, we expected at every moment that we should be attacked.

A smart ride of two hours brought us to a second settlement which contrasted most singularly with the first. Here, all the houses were neat and s.p.a.cious, with fine barns and stables; the fields were well enclosed, and covered with a green carpet of clover, upon which were grazing cattle and horses of a superior breed.

This sight of comfort and plenty restored our confidence in civilisation, which confidence we had totally lost at the first settlement we had fallen in with; and perceiving, among others, a dwelling surrounded with gardens arranged with some taste, we stopped our horses and asked for accommodation for ourselves and beasts. Three or four smart young boys rushed out, to take care of our horses, and a venerable old man invited us to honour his hearth. He was a Mormon, and informed us that hundreds of farmers belonging to that sect had established themselves in East Texas, at a short distance from each other, and that, if we were going to travel through the Arkansas, and chose to do so, we could stop every other day at a Mormon farm, until we arrived at the southern borders of the state of Missouri.

We resolved to avail ourselves of this information, antic.i.p.ating that every Mormon dwelling would be as clean and comfortable as the one we were in; but we afterwards found out our mistake, for, during the fifteen days' journey which we travelled between the Sabine and a place called Boston, we stopped at six different Mormon farms, either for night or fore-noon meals, but, unlike the first, they were anything but comfortable or prosperous. One circ.u.mstance, however, attracted particularly our attention; it was, that, rich or poor, the Mormon planters had superior cattle and horses, and that they had invariably stored up in their granaries or barns the last year's crop of every thing that would keep. Afterwards I learned that these farmers were only stipendiary agents of the elders of the Mormons, who, in the case of a westward invasion being decided upon by Joe Smith and his people, would immediately furnish their army with fresh horses and all the provisions necessary for a campaign.

One morning we met with a Texian constable going to arrest a murderer.

He asked us what o'clock it was, as he had not a watch, and told us that a few minutes' ride would bring us to Boston, a new Texian city. We searched in vain for any vestiges which could announce our being in the vicinity of even a village; at last, however, emerging from a swamp, through which we had been forcing our way for more than an hour, we descried between the trees a long building, made of the rough logs of the black pine, and as we advanced, we perceived that the s.p.a.ce between the logs (about six inches) had not been filled up, probably to obtain a more free circulation of air. This building, a naked negro informed us, was Amba.s.sadors' Hall, the great and only hotel of Texian Boston.

Two hundred yards farther we perceived a mult.i.tude of individuals swarming around another erection of the same description, but without a roof, and I spurred on my horse, believing we should be in time to witness some c.o.c.kfighting or a boxing-match; but my American fellow-travellers, better acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, declared it was the "Court House." As we had nothing to do there, we turned our horses' heads towards the tavern, and the barking of a pack of hungry dogs soon called around us a host of the Bostonians.

It is strange that the name of city should be given to an unfinished log-house, but such is the case in Texas; every individual possessing three hundred acres of land calls his lot a city, and his house becomes at once the tavern, the post office the court-house, the gaol, the bank, the land-office, and in fact everything. I knew a man near the Red River, who had obtained from government an appointment of postmaster, and, during the five years of his holding the office, he had not had a single letter in his hand.

This city mania is a very extraordinary disease in the United States, and is the cause of much disappointment to the traveller. In the Iowa territory, I once asked a farmer my way to Dubugue.

"A stranger, I reckon," he answered; "but no matter, the way is plain enough. Now, mind what I say: after you have forded the river, you will strike the military road till you arrive in the prairie; then you ride twenty miles east, till you arrive at Caledonia city; there they will tell you all about it."

I crossed the river, and, after half an hour's fruitless endeavours, I could not find the military road, so I forded back, and returned to my host.

"Law!" he answered; "why, the trees are blazed on each side of the road."

Now, if he had told me that at first, I could not have mistaken, for I had seen the blazing of a bridle-path; but as he had announced a military road, I expected, what it imported, a military road. I resumed my journey and entered the prairie. The rays of the sun were very powerful, and, wis.h.i.+ng to water my horse, I hailed with delight a miserable hut, sixteen feet square, which I saw at about half a mile from the trail. In a few minutes I was before the door, and tied my horse to a post, upon which was a square board bearing some kind of hieroglyphics on both sides. Upon a closer inspection, I saw upon one side, "Ice," and upon the other, "POSTOFF."

"A Russian, a Swede, or a Norwegian," thought I, knowing that Iowa contained eight or ten thousand emigrants of these countries. "Ice-- well, that is a luxury rarely to be found by a traveller in the prairie, but it must be pretty dear; no matter, have some I must."

I entered the hut, and saw a dirty woman half-naked, and slumbering upon a stool, by the corner of the chimney.

"Any milk?" I inquired, rousing her up.

She looked at me and shook her head; evidently she did not understand me; however, she brought me a stone jug full of whisky, a horn tumbler, and a pitcher of water.

"Can you give my horse a pail of water?" I asked again.

The woman bent down her body, and dragging from under the bed a girl of fourteen, quite naked, and with a skin as tough as that of an alligator, ordered her to the well with a large bucket. Having thus provided for my beast, I sat upon a stump that served for a chair, and once more addressed my hostess.

"Now, my good woman, let us have the ice."

"The what?" she answered.

As I could not make her understand what I wanted, I was obliged to drink the whisky with water almost tepid, and my horse being refreshed, I paid my fare and started.

I rode for three hours more, and was confident of having performed twice the distance named by mine host of the morning, and yet the prairie still extended as far as the eye could reach, and I could not perceive the city of Caledonia. Happily, I discovered a man at a distance riding towards me: we soon met.

"How far," said I, "to Caledonia city?"

"Eighteen miles," answered the traveller.

"Is there no farm on the way?" I rejoined, "for my horse is tired."