The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, July 1932 - April, 1933 Page: 95
328 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Alabama Indians of Texas
There were left of the Coshattis in Texas about fifty warriors, as
many women, and some thirty-five or forty boys and girls.
Ellis visited the Alabama town and found it entirely settled by
whites, with no Indians at all there. When the surveyor appeared
to run off their land, the Alabamas, taking it for granted that it
was for the white man, without a word of explanation, picked up
and left for Opelousas. But they wanted to live in Texas, so they
returned to find their two leagues in the possession of the whites
and the graves of their fathers and children in the hands of
strangers. They had lost not only their land, about two hundred
acres of which were cleared and under cultivation, but also their
cattle and horses over an hundred head.60 The Indians settled on
a league about thirty miles west of Town Bluff on the Neches in
Liberty county where they put in cultivation some one hundred
acres and built thirty or more cabins. But shortly after they were
forced to leave and they became homeless wanderers. The tribe at
this time is said to have consisted of one hundred and seven men
with their families and thirty-two young men.1"
The Alabamas were gentle and friendly and lived to themselves
in peace. The Coshattis were sometimes involved in troubles with
the whites, and their chiefs took part in the talks and councils of
the other tribes with the whites, and received their quota of
presents of blue flaps, sheeting, blankets, hoes, beads, and tobacco."2
In 1839, some of the citizens of Liberty county accused the
Coshattis of horse-stealing, and five of the Baptiste Indians were
murdered." Colutta, the hundred-year-old counsellor of the tribe,
alarmed for the safety of his people, sent the following "talk" to
Lamar:
Tell the Big Captain of your nation I am a Friend to the White
Man and have been so always; but the Indians are mad, five of the
"Petition of Alabama Indians, December 13, 1853, in MS., Memorial No.
19, File 1, Archives, State Department.
"Ellis to Western, December 8, 1844, in MS., Indian Papers, Texas State
Library.
"2Distribution of Presents under $100.00 to each Tribe; Minutes of a
Council Called for the Purpose of Establishing a Nominal Line until a
Treaty Could Be Made with the Comanches, May 13, 1844, both in MS.,
Indian Papers, Texas State Library; also Rusk to Bowles, August 28,
1838, in Gulick and Elliott, eds., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte
Lamar, II, 211.
6"Petition of Citizens of Liberty County, August 1, 1839, in MS., Indian
Papers, Texas State Library.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, July 1932 - April, 1933, periodical, 1933; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101093/m1/109/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.