Number One of a series on three great Texans---Hugh McLeod, Mirabeau B. Lamar and Chief Pochanaquarhip, better known as Buffalo Hump.

Depiction by Donald M. Yena ot the Battle of the Neches, where Chief Bowl was killed.

     Hugh McLeod led a charmed life.  He grew up in Georgia and graduated from West Point at age twenty-one in 1835.  He struggled a bit academically, but he was a polished public speaker, amiable, jolly, and well-liked, and no one mentioned that he was last in his class at the Military Academy.  After the red-headed and freckled McLeod delivered a fiery and persuasive speech at a Texas rally, Johanna Troutman chose him to carry her Lone Star flag to Texas with the Georgia volunteers.

     Because he was so enamored with the Texas cause and the outlook for a career in the U.S. Army appeared bleak, the stocky young officer decided to resign his commission as a second lieutenant and cast his lot with the Georgia boys going to Texas.  His resignation paperwork was delayed, so he entrusted the Troutman flag to Col. William Wood, and reported to Fort Jessup, Louisiana, for mustering out.  That paperwork snafu saved his life.  The entire Georgia battalion, including Col. Wood, was marched out and shot at Goliad, after surrendering with another Georgia boy, the former slave trader and inept commander, Col. James Fannin.

     Following his release from the U. S. Army, McLeod hurried to join Houston’s forces at San Jacinto, but arrived after the battle and proceeded to Galveston.   There he joined his boyhood idol, Mirabeau Lamar, and the interim governor of Texas, David Burnet.  Lamar, Secretary of War in the temporary government, found a place in the Texas army for young McLeod.  Eight days after the Battle of San Jacinto, the twenty-two year-old second lieutenant, whose only military experience involved almost flunking out at West Point and serving about six months in a peacetime army, was appointed a major and assigned to the command staff of the Texas Army.

     McLeod looked on Lamar with blind hero worship, and Lamar, flattered, looked out for the young man.  When Lamar became president of the Republic in December of 1838, the twenty-four year-old McLeod was Adjutant General of the Texas Army.  Lamar’s attitude toward Native Americans was diametrically opposed to that of Sam Houston, and the new president immediately set about to remove all Indians from the republic.  McLeod helped evict the peaceful Caddos and Kickapoos, and Lamar sent him to meet with the Cherokees in 1839. 

     Lamar decided to reclaim the land Houston had promised to deed the Cherokees for their help in the Texas Revolution.  In July of 1839, he sent McLeod and others to council with the Indians, who were peacefully farming their land in east Texas, north of Nacogdoches.  The interested “others” included Lamar’s vice president, David Burnet.  That same land had been ceded to him by a Mexican Land Grant, he sold it to an eastern syndicate, Houston gave it to the Cherokees, and Burnet saw an opportunity to get it back.  

Cherokee Chief "The Bowl"--Houston's friend.   After The Bowl was killed, Hugh McLeod presented Sam Houston with the old chief's distintive hat as a form of ridicule--Houston was considered an "Indian Lover."

 

     After three days of peaceful talks, the Texans lost patience and attacked.  The two-day Battle of the Neches resulted in the death of Houston’s old friend, Chief “Bowl.”  Hugh McLeod was slightly wounded in the battle and the Cherokee were driven across the Red River into what was then Arkansas Territory.

     President Lamar, pleased that the “Cherokee Problem” was resolved, turned his attention to the “Comanche Problem,” a much more complicated and dangerous situation.  Raiding parties of Comanche swooped in from the Llano Estacado, tortured, raped, and killed settlers, kidnapped children, burned settlements, and stole horses with impunity.  After the raids, the Comanche disappeared back into the trackless high plains, where no white man would go.

     An opportunity to resolve the problem presented itself in January of 1840, when a band of  Comanche sent delegates to San Antonio to try and arrange peace with the whites.  After long years of war, an especially hard winter, and a deadly epidemic of smallpox, this small group felt that peace might be a better course of action.  They arranged for a council to be held in March.

     The leaders of the Republic of Texas did not understand the Comanche.  The Comanche Nation existed as a group of individual tribes, living, hunting, raiding, moving, and dying on a piecemeal basis, with no central control or government.  The nation was made up of at least twelve distinct tribes, broken into as many as thirty-five separate bands.   Each band chose its own leaders, made its own rules, lived where it wished, and did as it pleased.  They warred with everyone except other Comanche.  Sam Houston may have understood all this, but his advice was not welcome in Lamar’s administration.  Because of their many differences, the two leaders could not stand each other.

      Some eight or ten bands of Comanche were involved in the peace initiative, but dozens of bands refused to hold council with the dishonest Anglos.  Council was a sacred thing to the Comanche and not to be entered into lightly.  Delegates from the starving groups truthfully told the powers in San Antonio that all the prisoners they held would be released, borders would be established and honored, and none of their band would break the truce.  They did not, and could not, speak for the other tribes, but the elated Texans thought this meant the entire Comanche Nation would lay down its arms, release hostages, and go back to peaceful existence out on the high plains, away from settled areas.  The Texans believed President Lamar’s “show no mercy” policy with the Indians was working. 

Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second President of the Republic of Texas and lifelong enemy of Sam Houston.

     Two prominent chiefs of the Comanche, Peta Nocona of the Noconas and Buffalo Hump of the Penatakas, refused to council with the whites and refused to release any hostages. Peta Nocona married a captive, Cynthia Ann Parker.   They may have been married at that time—she would have been fourteen and had been with his tribe for over four years.  Their son, Quanah Parker, born over five years later, became one of the most famous chiefs of the Comanche.  Buffalo Hump was especially vocal in his opposition to the meeting, and predicted dire consequences.  Both these respected chiefs were well acquainted with the treachery of the whites, and felt it was foolhardy to attempt any dealings with them.

     To be continued…..


      (My friend, Jimmy Wallace, asked that I do something about Buffalo Hump.  Jimmy is a serious student of Texas History and a full time resident of San Antonio, where so much of it happened.  I do not, at this time, know how many episodes this series will be, but all of them are dedicated to Jimmy Wallace.)