With the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, and with the removal of the great raft on the Red river, immigrants flocked into the Caddo country and pushed the Indians from their old haunts. According to the treaty of 1835 the Caddo ceded all their land and agreed to move at their own expense beyond the boundaries of the United States, never to return and settle as a tribe. Thus the tribes living in Louisiana, being forced to leave their old home, gradually moved southwest and joined their kindred living in Texas.

1. RELATIONS WITH THE TEXAS COLONISTS

The second article of the treaty of 1835 stipulated that the Caddo should move without the boundaries of the United States within one year after the signing of the treaty. Their plan to move into Texas was interrupted by the outbreak of the Texas revolution in October, 1835, and by the request of the Texans that the United States government prohibit the Caddoes from moving into their country. In March, 1836, John T. Mason of Nacogdoches wrote Major Nelson, commander at Fort Jesup, as follows:

Travis and all his men captured and murdered. An apprehension of a serious character exists here that the Indians are assembling to fall upon this frontier, particularly those from the United States. I have taken pains to in form myself of the facts, and I have no doubt they have been prepared to move in the event of Santa Anna's success. He is determined to wage a war of extermination against Texas, and has engaged the Indians to aid him. The Committee of Vigilance here will address you on the subject of the threatened danger from the Indians. Is it not in your power to send a messenger to them, particularly the Caddoes, to make them keep quiet? To the extent of your authority, every principle of humanity and safety to the inhabitants of both borders requires an exertion of your powers to avert the disaster of an Indian war; and I have no doubt you will exert all your energies to that end.

General Edmund P. Gaines, who had been ordered by the Secretary of War to the western frontier of the state of Louisiana to take charge, arrived at Natchitoches on April 4, 1836, where he at once began an investigation of border conditions. He said:

The 33d article of the treaty with Mexico requires both the contracting parties to prevent, by force, all hostilities and incursions on the part of the Indian nations living with in their respective boundaries, so that the United States of America will not suffer their Indians to attack the citizens of the Mexican States.

He had been instructed to enforce the provisions of that article, and to make known to the Indians inhabiting that part of the United States along the Red and Arkansas rivers, the de termination of the government to prevent any hostile incursions into Texas. He had learned from citizens that Manuel Flores, a Mexican resident of Spanish Town near Natchitoches, had been lately commissioned by persons professing to act by the authority of the Mexican government, to persuade the Indians in the western prairies on the United States side of the boundary line to join Mexico in the war in Texas; and that with this in view, Flores, accompanied by a stranger, had lately passed up the valley of the Red River, and had already produced considerable excitement among the Caddo Indians. He further stated:

These facts and circumstances present to me the important question, whether I am to sit still and suffer these movements to be so far matured as to place the white settlements, on both sides of the line, wholly within the power of the savages; or whether I ought not instantly to prepare the means for protecting the frontier settlements, and, if necessary, compelling the Indians to return to their own homes and hunting grounds? I cannot but decide in favor of the last alternative which this question presents; for nothing can be more evident than that an Indian war, commencing on either side of the line, will as surely extend to both sides as that a lighted quick-match thrust into one side of a powder-magazine would extend the explosion to both sides.

The Indian situation on both sides of the border caused a great deal of fear and excitement. The Cherokees and their associated bands of eastern Texas, who had been for a long time legal contestants of the whites for lands, were very restless. A fear that the Caddo and other tribes from north of Red River would join the Texas Indians was an added terror, it being known that Manuel Flores had been among the Red river Indians trying to incite them to attack the settlements. The committee of vigilance and safety at San Augustine reported to the citizens that large bodies of Caddo, Shawnee, Delaware, Kickappo, Cherokee, Creek, and other tribes were assembling at the three forks of the Trinity to make war on the inhabitants of the frontier. On April 1, Mason wrote to Gaines that the settlers had no protection except that afforded by the soldiers of the United States. All of the tribes of the Missouri and Arkansas frontier, as well as the immigrant Indians of Texas who had been deprived of their lands, would be glad to enter into a war against the whites.

The committee of vigilance and safety at Nacogdoches appointed C. H. Sims, William Sims, and M. B. Menard as agents to visit the tribes north of Nacogdoches and ascertain their intentions. C. H. Sims stated that he had visited the Cherokee, thirty miles west of Nacogdoches, and found them hostile and prepared for war, and they had informed him that a large body of Caddo, Kichai, Inies, Towakanas, Waco, and Comanche were to attack the settlements. News also came from James and Ralph Chesher, who were in command of a military company, that a Mexican and Indian force conducted by the Caddo had already crossed the Trinity river and that Nacogdoches was in danger. R. A. Irion, acting commandant of Nacogdoches, notified Mason that the news of the movements of the Indians had been confirmed, and that on April 10, a large force led by the Caddo, had encamped at the Sabine sixty miles north of Nacogdoches. The inhabitants were leaving the town and were planning to assemble at Attagas or San Augustine.

While these conditions prevailed at Nacogdoches, Gaines was making an effort to find out the true state of affairs among the Caddoes. J. Bonnell, a lieutenant in the Third Infantry, was sent to the Caddo villages to ascertain facts relative to reports concerning the conduct of these Indians. On April 20, Bonnell reported at Camp Sabine after he had visited the Caddo villages, where he was informed by the Caddo chief and warriors, through his interpreter, that Manuel Flores had recently been among them endeavoring to persuade them to go with him into Texas to kill and plunder the white inhabitants. Flores told them that he held a commission from the Mexican government and promised them free plunder if they would go with him; that the Spaniards (Mexicans) wished all the Americans (white inhabitants of Texas) destroyed; that all the Americans in Texas were deserters from their own country. At the first village Bonnell found only two or three squaws and a few children, the warriors having gone to the prairies because Flores had told them that the Americans were going to kill them. Bonnell sent for the few warriors who were found in the neighborhood and assured them that the Americans were their friends, and wished them to return to their villages and live in peace, and hunt on their own grounds as usual. The Indians declared that Flores had made no impression on their loyalty and that they had heard so many reports they did not know what to believe; they were now glad to know the truth.

At the second village, twelve miles further, Bonnell found Chief Cortes and several warriors who said that when the principal chief led the men to the prairies to hunt, he (Cortes) had told them not to disturb the whites. He promised to notify the Indians on the prairies and requested that Gaines be informed that if the Caddoes should see the Americans and Spaniards fighting, they would not take part on either side. Cortes further said that when the Caddoes left for the prairies to hunt they were friendly to the whites.

When Bonnell returned to the first village he learned that Flores had passed through the village accompanied by "a thick, short man, about middle-aged, who had formerly lived at Nacogdoches," and that there were three Mexicans then on the prairies hunting with the Indians. One Indian said that had it not been for the lies that Flores told them, the Caddoes would long since have returned and planted their corn. This Indian said that the tribe would not wage a war against the whites, but admitted that Flores was then hunting with the Caddoes on the prairies, that he had gone with them since he could not prevail upon them to go with him.
Marshall says:

Three of the circumstances brought out in Bonnell's report tend to confirm the opinion that the Caddo were in league with the Cherokee in spite of all their friendly protestations; the first striking fact is the absence of the warriors; the second, that the Indians had done nothing toward their corn planting, an operation which the squaws usually performed; and third, the fact that the Mexican emissaries were admitted to be with the warriors.

If the Caddoes had promised the Cherokees to join them against the settlers of Texas, Bonnell's visit evidently influenced them to change their minds, for on May 13, the Caddo chiefs re quested Larkin Edwards who had lived among them for thirteen years and had been their interpreter for six years, to write to Gaines in their behalf. In this letter Edwards said:

A Mexican or Frenchman named Manuel Flores, an emissary of the Mexican Government, has been for some time past residing among the Caddo Indians, and by promises of large sums of money attempted to embroil the Indians in the war between the Mexican Government and Texas. This I know to be the fact, as he is commissioned by the Mexican Government for the purpose of exciting the Caddoes to war against the Texians. ... The emissary, Manuel Flores, informed them that the American Government intended to exterminate them. ... The Cherokees of Texas, they [Caddoes] also inform me, have attempted to make them a part with them against the Texians.

Flores remained among the Caddoes and Sterling C. Robert son reported that his promises of Mexican gold had a great deal to do with inciting them to acts of hostility against the settlers. On June 16, several depredations occurred in the Robertson colony. James Dunn, the regidor of the municipality of Milam, testified that having heard of the massacre at Parker's fort, on the Navasota River in which several persons had been killed by the Kiowa and Comanche Indians, he prepared to move to Nashville, on the Brazos, with a view of "forting" and that he, with Henry Walker and William Smith, were attacked by about fifty Indians. They wounded Smith, killed his horse, killed many cattle and drove the remainder away. Half of the Indians proceeded about a mile and a half away and attacked other settlers in the neighborhood killing two of them.

It was Dunn's belief that about half the Indians who attacked them were Caddoes because the Caddoes wore shirts which were rarely worn by any of the tribes of Indians living in Texas; they had a peculiar manner of wearing their hair, having it cut closely on both sides of the head, and leaving a "top-knot," which was generally worn in a silver tube, "and that they had silver in their nose;" furthermore, he recognized Douchey, a Caddo chief, among the assailants. Montgomery B. Shackleford, one of the settlers who had been attacked, confirmed the testimony given by Dunn. Robertson sent the depositions of Dunn and Shackleford to Gaines, calling attention to the fact that the Caddoes, whom the United States by treaty obligations should restrain from lawless violence, rapine, plunder, and murder, were participants, if not leaders, in the attacks that had recently been made upon the citizens of the frontier. Robertson further said that many citizens had been murdered and much property had been taken by the Caddoes, and that helpless women and children were now in their possession as prisoners, subject to their cruel treatment. He appealed to the sympathies of Gaines, -"Already we hear from lisping infancy and weary and withered age throughout this wide-spreading republic, that you are a friend of Texas. If the facts as stated will justify your march against the Caddoes, the country, we trust, will shortly be relieved from Indian hostility.

On June 22, Gaines answered Robertson's letter, saying that the depositions established beyond a doubt the lamentable fact that the murders to which they referred had been perpetrated by the Indians of Texas or its vicinity, but it was not clear that the Caddoes were among the offenders; yet he thought the evidence sufficient to justify an immediate investigation of the matter.

Spy Buck, an Indian of the Shawnee tribe, testified before a meeting of the committee of safety at Nacogdoches that he had heard from his uncle that a number of Indians, including the Kichai, Towakanas, and Caddoes, had recently killed, at one time, eight Americans, four or five miles below the old Delaware town on Red River.

As a result of these reported hostilities an effort was made by Bonnell and the Texan Indian agent Menard to ascertain the true Indian situation. On August 9 Menard reported to Samuel Houston at Nacogdoches that the Cherokee, Biloxi, Choctaw, Alabama and Caddo were very hostile, and he believed they would soon begin incursions against the settlements. Bonnell sent the reports of Menard to Gaines, adding that they had been confirmed by Michael Sacco, a Frenchman.

Major B. Riley was sent among the Caddo to make a thorough investigation. He visited four of the Caddo villages or settlements and saw between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty men of the different villages. Riley found them peaceably inclined, very much degraded, and addicted to the use of liquor, and if they had committed depredations on the inhabitants, or their property, it was caused by the use of too much whiskey, which appeared to be in abundance in and about their villages. They seemed to be "a poor, miserable people, incapable of the smallest exertion, either as it regards living, or any thing else except liquor." The Caddo chief, Tarshar, or the "Wolf", told Riley that they wanted to live in peace with the whites and did not want to go to war. He said that Flores had been trying to persuade his nation to move to Texas, but they had refused to go.

After July 1, 1836, it appears that the Caddoes proceeded to carry out their treaty obligations with the United States. Until that time Gaines had insisted that they remain in their old villages near Shreveport and refrain from committing depredations on the settlements in Texas. Some of the bands immediately migrated into Texas, while others, taking advantage of the unsettled state of the boundary between Texas and the United States, and of the unsettled conditions in Texas as a consequence of the revolution, continued to live in the Caddo Lake region until about 1840 when they, too, joined their brethren in Texas. The Caddoes associated themselves with the prairie Indians in Texas and combined with them in waging warfare against the white settlements. In August, Henry M. Morfit appointed by President Jackson to ascertain the political, military, and civil condition of Texas, reported that about five hundred Caddoes "have lately migrated from the borders of the United States towards the Trinidad, and who, a few weeks ago, destroyed the village of Bastross."

In January, 1837, according to Kenney, a force of Caddoes, estimated at more than a hundred, invaded the settlements on Little River, west of the Brazos, where they were encountered by Captain Erath with fourteen men. The white men surprised their camp on the bank of Elm Creek at daylight and killed several The Caddoes being armed with rifles made a counter attack in which they defeated the whites, killing three, and wounding several others, besides losing ten of their warriors. They were forced to retreat because of a great storm of sleet and snow; but, being disappointed because they had failed to get scalps and plunder, they soon returned and murdered several settlers along the frontier as far west as the Colorado. Another report stated that they had murdered Captain Beaston and several persons who were in company with him on the Guadalupe River. It was also reported that a family consisting of an old man, his wife, and several children, living thirty miles north of Nashville had been killed by the Caddoes.

In a report to Memucan Hunt, dated September 20, 1837, Irion said:

The line of the Sabine and Red River frontier is not the scene of the depredations of the Caddoes; their acts of violence are perpetrated on the Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Guadalupe, etc., far distant from the place of their ordinary abode. In almost every skirmish that occurs on our western frontier Caddoes are recognized. They have in several instances, been shot in the act of stealing horses and murdering the Texians. They are not formidable on account of numbers but from their influence with the prairie tribes.

According to Kenney, the Caddoes murdered the Goacher family (in what is now Lee County) in 1837 and took a Mrs. Crawford with an infant two months old and two other children as captives to their villages on Red River. He related the following incident concerning these captives:

Becoming tired of hearing the infant cry, they snatched it from its mother and threw it into a deep pool of water. The mother followed and brought it out. The Indians seized it and threw it back, and, amused at the frantic efforts of the mother to save it from drowning, continued the sport for some time. At length one of them took the babe and, drawing back its head, told another to cut its throat, which he was about to do, when the mother, nerved by desperation, seized a billet of wood, which chanced to be near at hand, and knocked him down. She expected instant death, but, instead of the expected resentment, the Indians laughed loudly at their fallen comrade, and one of them gave her the child, saying, "Squaw too much brave... take your pappoose and carry it yourself." They did not attempt to injure it afterwards. After two years the captives were ransomed from them at Coffee's trading-house on Red River and returned to their kindred.

In 1837 Colonel Many sent an officer to make inquiries concerning the robberies and murders supposed to have been committed by Indians from the United States. This officer reported that all the depredations committed had been by Indians in the interior of Texas, and by small straggling bands, none of whom be longed to the United States, except the Caddoes; and "that he did not know why they had been regarded as United States Indians, as their principal villages had always been considered within the limits of Texas." He further reported that the Caddoes denied having committed any depredations on the whites, and appeared very anxious to be on friendly terms with them; "that there were but two well-attested cases against the Caddoes-one of robbery, and the other of murder-for which they had provocation in (the fact that) several of their tribe had been killed by the whites." Colonel Many and the officer he sent to the Caddo village failed to take into account the fact that more than half of the Caddoes had already migrated into Texas.

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