Читать книгу With Sam Houston in Texas онлайн

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Fort Gibson, or Cantonment Gibson (a cantonment being deemed not so permanent as a fort), located here on the east bank of the Grand River a few miles above the Arkansas, in the southwest corner of the United States possessions, was only a small post established among the Cherokee, Creek and Choctaw Indians of the Indian Country. Of these, the Cherokees were the most numerous around the post. They had their principal village, named Tah-lon-tees-kee, down the Arkansas about thirty miles; they lived in quite a civilized fashion, with their rulers and councils, and comfortable houses, and well-cultivated farms. White people had married into the tribe, and they even kept slaves.

Sam Houston was a Cherokee; he had been adopted by the old head chief John Jolly—whose Indian name was Oo-loo-te-kah; and took part in the councils that made the laws, and was given the name Col-lon-neh, which meant The Raven. He was one of the few white men who could speak the Cherokee language.

But lately Sam Houston had left the Cherokee town of Tah-lon-tees-kee; he had married a half-Cherokee woman named Tyania Rodgers, and with her had settled across the Grand River opposite Fort Gibson, where he had taken up land, built a log house, and was farming and trading.