erly 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
shipped 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 massacre 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 flourishing 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