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Lamar expresses good will to Chief Colita
On this day in 1839, Mirabeau B. Lamar, president of the Republic of
Texas, wrote to Colita, chief of the Coushatta Indians, expressing
regret that conflicts had occurred between the Indians and white
settlers. The event is notable because it marked a sharp divergence from
Lamar's general Indian policy. Unlike Sam Houston, whose administration
had attempted to conciliate the Indians--especially Houston's "own"
tribe, the Cherokees--Lamar thought that the Indians should be either
exterminated or driven from Texas. This animus helped to bring about
several of the most serious clashes between Indians and whites in early
Texas. Lamar's proffer of friendship toward the Alabamas and Coushattas
was therefore a striking exception to his usual policy. Perhaps he was
remembering how these East Texas Indians had helped the white settlers
to escape from the Mexican army in the Runaway Scrape (1836). In any
case, Lamar offered land to the Alabamas and Coushattas and appointed
Joseph Lindley as a mediator between the Indians and the settlers. The
gesture turned out to be futile, however, for when the Indians saw their
land being marked off, they assumed it was for white settlers and
abandoned the area; whereupon white settlers took the land.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- COLITA
- LAMAR, MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE
- ALABAMA-COUSHATTA INDIANS
- INDIAN RELATIONS
- LINDLEY, JOSEPH
- HOUSTON, SAMUEL
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Spaniards found East Texas mission (1716)
- Groundbreaking ceremony for veterans center (1948)
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