by William D. Welge
For nearly twenty years certain groups of Cherokees split off from the western band due to the ever increasing number of white settlers encroaching upon lands set aside for the tribe by the federal government. However, the government didn’t abide by it’s commitment to remove the white intruders as specified by treaty. Consequently, individuals such as The Bowl and Richard Fields gathered up several groups of like-minded tribal members and moved south of the Red River in to Spanish Texas.
As early as 1807, a small party of Cherokees visited Texas with the prospect of possibly relocating there. (See: The Texas Cherokees: A People Between Two Fires, 1819-1840, by Dianna Everett).
With constanst warfare on-going between the Osage and Cherokee tribes, an influx of whites settling on to lands in western Arkansas, and the profound inaction of an indifferent federal bureaucracy, The Bowl with his followers left the Cherokee Nation – West for Texas around 1819.
All this now sets the stage for what transpires over the next two decades that changes the lives of thousands of Cherokees both east and west of the Mississppi River.
