The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 313

k0ook Reviews
Texas Indian Papers, 1844-1845. Edited by Dorman Winfrey.
Austin (Texas State Library), 1960. Pp. 453. Illustrations,
map, index. $7.00.
This is the second of four volumes of Texas Indian Papers
published by the Texas State Library. The first three were edited
by Dorman Winfrey (the third, covering the years 1846-1859,
was reviewed in this journal by Kenneth F. Neighbours, Vol.
LXV, 606-607); the fourth, covering the years 1860-1916, has
been edited by James Day. Winfrey, Day, and the Texas State
Library deserve a tremendous amount of praise for publishing
these volumes. They are so valuable to the researcher, save him
so much time, and are generally so well edited that this reviewer
almost wept with joy when he first heard they were to be pub-
lished. Extensive use of these volumes has only served to increase
appreciation of the important service the editors have performed.
In many ways the second volume is the most interesting and
important of the four volumes, for this brief period was a crucial
one in the relations between Texas and her Indians. The quan-
tity of Indian papers was much greater in this period than in any
other and may be taken as a reflection of the importance of the
epoch. The first volume, for example, covered nineteen years
(1825-1843); the third, fourteen years (1846-1860); the fourth,
fifty-seven years (1861-1916), but this second volume, only two
years. Sam Houston was again President of the Republic of Texas
and was pursuing a policy of peace and friendship toward the
Indians. The major problem was to induce the Comanches to
attend a council with representatives of the republic. As a result
of strenuous efforts, some of the southern Comanches were in-
duced to attend a council in the fall of 1844. The minutes of the
meeting (pp. 103-114) reveal much about the minds and motives
of both the Comanches and Sam Houston. The resulting Treaty
of 'Tehuacana Creek (pp. 114-119) is fascinating, not so much for
what was agreed upon but for the disagreements which, of course,
were omitted from the treaty.