During
Sam Houston's first term as president of Texas, while maintaining the
Texas Rangers to police rogue Indians, Houston used diplomacy and presents to keep the peace on the frontier with the
Comanche and
Kiowa, and treated with his allies, the Cherokee. Houston had lived with the Cherokee and had earned his reputation among Native Americans for fairness and decency. The Cherokee were unhappy that the promises to give them title to their lands, which he had made them to secure their neutrality during the
Texas Revolution, had not been fulfilled. Houston negotiated a settlement with them in February 1836, though he was unable to get the Legislature to ratify the portion of the treaty confirming the Cherokee's land titles. This was neither the first nor last time the legislature refused to ratify agreements Houston made with the Indians. The letter written in Spanish sought an arrangement with the Cherokee which would give them title to their land in exchange for assistance in joining a war of extermination against the
Texians. Residents of
Nacogdoches looking for a stolen horse found a camp of around one hundred armed
Tejanos. Rather than allow the local militia to act, Houston (who was in Nacogdoches at the time) prohibited both sides from assembly or carrying of weapons. Local alcalde Vicente Córdova and eighteen other leaders of the revolt issued a proclamation with a number of demands to be met before their surrender. After being joined by around three hundred Indian warriors, they moved towards the Cherokee settlements. Despite Houston's orders he should not cross the
Angelina River to interfere, General
Thomas Rusk sent on a party of 150 men under Major Henry Augustine, who defeated the rebels near
Seguin, Texas. Despite the involvement of the Cherokee and the discovery of documents directly implicating Cherokee chief
The Bowl on two separate Mexican agents over the next six months, Houston professed to believe the chief's denials and refused to order them arrested. In his several letters of reassurance to The Bowl during the unrest, Houston again promised them title to their land on the
Neches River. Warriors believing their lands to be violated by the legal settlers then perpetrated the
Killough massacre, killing eighteen. In the wake of this and the publication of
Rachel Plummer's narrative of her captivity among the
Comanche, Texas's second president, Mirabeau B. Lamar, was less sympathetic toward the tribe and convinced that the Cherokees could not be allowed to stay in Texas. Stating that "the white man and the red man cannot dwell in harmony together," as "Nature forbids it," Lamar instructed his subordinates to communicate to the Cherokees: that unless they consent at once to receive a fair Compensation for their improvements and other property, and remove out of this Country, nothing short of the entire of all they possess, and the extermination of their Tribe will appease the indignation of the white people against them. Should the Cherokee refuse compensation for their removal and resist, Lamar's orders were: to push a rigorous war against them; pursuing them to their hiding places without mitigation or compassion, until they shall be made to feel that flight from our borders without hope of return, is preferable to the scourges of war. The removal of the Cherokee was one of the first acts of his presidency. ==Battle==