Life and select literary remains of Sam Houston of Texas/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
While a runaway boy among the Cherokee Indians in the HiWassee Country, Sam Houston was adopted as his son by Oolooteka, the chief, who gave him shelter and protection. In the course of events this Cherokee chief had removed to Arkansas and had become principal chief of his tribe, resident there. Tokens of fond recollection passed between this chief and the subject of this memoir. Eleven eventful years had passed, but their attachment knew no abatement. Resigning the gubernatorial chair of Tennessee he determined to wend his way to the wigwam of the old Cherokee chief. That chief was his adopted father, and he was assured that he would greet and welcome him with a hearty blessing. Embarking on a steamer on the Cumberland River, he separated from his devoted friends amid evidences of warm affection, presenting a scene of touching tenderness. The chief honors of the State had crowned him. He had filled its highest stations. In the strength and vigor of early manhood, he stood forth in his thirty-fifth year, a man of the people, toward whose future promotion all his friends had looked with eager anticipations of a brilliant career. Nor were they to be disappointed, for that career, although it did not culminate among the mountains and plains of Tennessee, still it reached the acme of its glory amid the grandeur of Texan scenery.
From Nashville he went, by steamer, to Little Rock, Arkansas, thence four hundred miles to the north-west, to the falls of the Arkansas. He travelled alternately by land and water. Near the mouth of the Illinois, on the east side of the Arkansas, the old Chief Oolooteka had built his wigwam. Above Fort Smith, on both sides of the river, the Cherokees were settled. The falls were two miles distant from the chief's dwelling. It was night when the steamboat reached the landing. A message was sent to the old man as the boat passed the mouth of the river, that Coloneh (the Rover, the Indian name given Sam Houston on his adoption,) was on board. Bringing with him all his family, he came to meet his adopted son. Throwing his arms around him and embracing him with great affection: "My son," said he, "eleven winters have passed since we met. My heart has wondered often where you were, and I heard you were a great chief among your people. Since we parted by the falls as you went up the river, I have heard that a dark cloud had fallen on the white path you were walking, and when it fell in your way you turned your thoughts to my wigwam. I am glad of it; it was done by the Great Spirit. There are many wise men among your people and they have many councillors in your section. We are in trouble, and the Great Spirit has sent you to us to give us counsel and take trouble away from us. I know you will be our friend, for our hearts are near to you, and you will tell our sorrows to the great father, General Jackson. My wigwam is yours; my home is yours; my people are yours; rest with us." Such a greeting took largely from his breast the bitter gloom and sorrow of the past few weeks. He was at home; the wanderer had rest. The chief possessed a large plantation, ten or twelve servants, and not less than five or six hundred head of cattle. Living like a patriarch, simply, abundantly, his wigwam and bountiful board were welcome to visitors, and he always entertained numerous guests with princely hospitality. The venerable chief was six feet high, and although about sixty-five years of age, his eyesight did not fail him, nor did he exhibit the feebleness of age. With courtly carriage he moved among the people of his race and at their council fires presided with the peerless grace of a king upon his throne. With him Sam Houston remained till manifest destiny called him to Texas.
The Indians, oppressed and outraged, had the sympathy of Houston. He knew their wrongs, and his untiring and magnanimous efforts in their behalf form some of the finest pictures of the lights and shadows of forest life. Domiciled among them, he determined to care for their interests and protect them in their rights. He had studied the mysteries of nature among their wigwams, around their council fires, and in the silent virgin forests. By an Indian he had never been betrayed or deceived, and the Indians on this continent never had a better friend than Houston. White men had wronged them, introduced discord at their council fires, robbed them of their forests and game, driven them from the graves of their fathers, and enticed them from their happy hunting grounds by deceitful bribes of trinkets and rifles. White men had introduced among them their vices and loathsome diseases. For their peltry they gave them whiskey and cards; thus by these accursed agencies they had degraded their powers, bowed the strength of their aboriginal nature, and humbled their sublime chivalry. Stern chieftains had become idiotic sots. Tribes had melted away. The remnants of tribes once indomitable, but magnanimous, knew no other sentiment than revenge toward those who had wronged them in violation of every treaty, and usurped the fair lands over which their forefathers had once roamed, undisputed monarchs, chainless and free.
Knowing that General Jackson, who was then President, and who was his life-long personal friend, would sympathize with him in his efforts to benefit the Indians, he resolved to scrutinize the actions of the Indian agents and sub-agents, and report the result to the President. He never entered the councils nor joined in the deliberations, although he was at all times invited to take part in the councils of the Cherokees. The manifest injustice and cruel oppressions inflicted upon this people by the agents charged with the conduct of their affairs on their migration to the Indian country, were matters of history detailed to him by the old chief. One instance of the outrageous wrong done them may suffice. By treaty, they were to receive twenty-eight dollars per capita in exchange for the lands which they had on the Lower Arkansas. This aggregated a very large sum in money. Under pretence that they had no money, the agents issued certificates. The Indians received these certificates, and as they had always considered paper worthless, they were easily persuaded to part with their paper to the merchants, who were in collusion with the agents, and who purchased the certificates fraudulently, for a trifling sum, inducing the Indians to believe that it was doubtful whether the Government would ever be able to send them the money. For the sacred obligations of our Government, made under the sanctions of a treaty, these deceived exiles often received a "Mackinaw blanket, a flask of powder, or a bottle of whiskey." It is doubtful whether a fifth part of the money secured to them by sacred treaty ever passed into their hands, and even this fifth was wrung from them for whiskey, or in gambling. Preyed upon by abandoned speculators, whole tribes were robbed of the munificent grants of Congress.
General Houston had for more than a year a trading establishment between the Grand River and the Verdegris, and although at that time far from being a practical temperate man himself, he never permitted traffic in destructive drinks, and made unceasing efforts to prevent the introduction of ardent spirits among the Indians. Occasionally he indulged in intoxicating drinks to excess, at Fort Gibson and other white settlements, but his love for the red men and sense of right, forbade that he should ever be a party to the traffic or use of poisonous liquids to contribute to their crimes or misfortunes.
Holding no official station himself, and mingling freely with them, with no selfish aims, a voluntary exile to their wigwams, a witness of intolerable acts of outrage on the rights of a generous people, he determined to report these outrages to the General Government, that their perpetrators might be immediately removed. Accordingly, early in 1832 he went to Washington city and presented such a statement as resulted in an investigation of the conduct of no less than five agents and sub-agents and their prompt removal. These agents and sub-agents had powerful friends in Congress. Instigated by mortified pride, they crowded the journals of Arkansas with infamous libels upon Houston's character. They never forgave him the crime of tearing away the mask from a band of leagued land pirates, and they lavishly used their money with a venal press to overwhelm him with infamy. A hostile majority controlled Congress at that time and used the most strenuous exertions to crush General Jackson; but the heroic old man smiled on the shafts of calumny which were hurled harmlessly at him; and 'midst the waves of malignity which surged around him, untouched, unscathed, he calmly gazed upon the futile efforts of his political foes. But a young hero was the sworn friend of the President. If they could not strike General Jackson directly, they might injure him through his personal friend. All the foes of General Jackson were successfully rallied against him. He had proved incontrovertibly against them some startling facts. The agents had been contractors for furnishing Indian rations. To multitudes only a scanty and insufficient supply of food had been supplied, and through their neglect or cupidity, some of the Indians had actually died of starvation. As there was but one point in the two nations (Creeks and Cherokees) where rations were issued, the emigrants, as they could not make a crop, were compelled to locate in a most unhealthy district of country, where only their rations could be obtained. The exposure of this grievous wrong aroused the fiercest malignity of the desperate men, determined on injuring General Jackson and crushing General Houston.
The truth of history requires that names shall not be suppressed. Hon. Wm. Stansberry, of Ohio, a gentleman remarkable at that time for his personal animosity toward General Jackson, was selected as the file leader of the crusade against General Houston. He had been elected as a friend of the President, but was induced to become the instrument of wiser, if not better men, to make the onslaught. In his place, as representative of Ohio in the House of Representatives, he boldly charged General Houston with an attempt to obtain a contract for Indian rations fraudulent in character and design, and as boldly insinuated that the then Secretary of War and even General Jackson were involved in the attempt to defraud.
All sorts of calumny had been heaped upon Houston. He had hitherto borne all in silence; but his forbearance now forsook him. That the integrity of his bnst personal and political friend should be assailed by a member of Congress, without shadow of evidence, was 
Four processes were commenced against Houston by the chastised member. He expected to disgrace and crush the General forever by these methods. First: The House of Representatives resolved itself into a judicial tribunal, directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Gen. Houston, and bring him to its bar, to be tried on the "charge of violation of the rights of one of its members, whom Houston had held responsible for words uttered in debate." For nearly thirty days the Court sat, and to condemn the accused man no means were spared. His friends argued with great ability that the House had no jurisdiction in the case; that Congress, by the Constitution, had been made a Legislative Assembly; that it possessed no judicial powers over American citizens. In this view, some of the political opponents of Gen. Jackson concurred. Houston spoke in his own defence on the trial, at great length, with consummate ability and eloquence. But as the matter dragged wearily for a month, his foes became tired of the prosecution, and the people were becoming indignant that the business of the country should be abandoned by the Congress, to prosecute a soldier who had bled in the service of his country, and who was unfortunately self-exiled. He had been four years a member of the body before which he was arraigned; he had been Governor of Tennessee; he bore in his body unhealed wounds received in fighting for the flag which then floated over the Capitol. Popular feeling turned in his favor; as it was understood that he had only repelled the attack of an armed coward, and chastised one who had boldly charged. the President of the United States with fraud because he thought he would be protected by his privilege as a member of the House m so doing. Houston became dear to the people as they learned that his torture was the consequence of earnest and devoted love for Gen. Jackson, the then President of the Union. The trial closed with a party vote, instructing the Speaker, Hon. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, to reprimand the prisoner at the bar of the House. The reprimand was delivered so delicately and courteously, that all over the Union it was regarded as a signal triumph, and carried more the tone of approval than of reprimand.
The second method was the appointment of a committee to investigate the charge which the member from Ohio had made, that Houston was guilty of fraud, in an attempt to procure a contract for furnishing Indian rations. Houston, in conscious innocence, advocated this measure. The committee was appointed,—Stansberry, of Ohio, was appointed its chairman. Thus armed, he conducted a tedious and thorough investigation. But after examining every circumstance which could be adduced, the committee was compelled, finally, to report that they had not found the slightest evidence with which to support the charge.
The third method was by resolution for ever to exclude him from the lobby of the House, where as an Ex-Member of Congress and Ex-Governor of a State, he was privileged to go. The resolution was not adopted.
The fourth method was indictment by the Grand Jury of the District of Columbia. He was held to bail in a criminal process of $20,000. He stood the bail, which resulted in a fine of $500 and costs, but no attempt to enforce the sentence of the Court was ever made, and the last act but one of Gen. Jackson's administration was to remit the fine. Houston was triumphant over all his foes. Seldom has so malignant a persecution ever been waged against a man in public life. He had invited scrutiny. He showed no cowardice. His foes retired from the contest loaded with chagrin and contempt. He returned to his voluntary exile—a home in the distant wigwam of the old Indian chief. For a year he had endured the persecution of men of pretended civilization, and now, wherever he went, especially in Tennessee, he was received with enthusiastic demonstrations of regard. State pride asserted itself among Tennesseeans, to protect and honor a citizen who had passed through such cruel and undeserving persecutions. Though posts of honor offered, no emoluments tendered by his friends, or by Gen. Jackson particularly, could persuade him from once more returning to the forest. He resided, in all, nearly three years among the Cherokees. Of the manner in which the Indians were wronged. Gen. Houston once said: "During the period of my residence among the Indians in the Arkansas region, I had every facility for gaining a complete knowledge of the flagrant outrages practiced upon the poor red men, by the agents of the Government. I saw every year vast sums squandered and consumed without the Indians deriving the least benefit, and the Government, in very many instances, utterly ignorant of the wrongs that were perpetrated. Had one-third of the money advanced by the Government been usefully and wisely applied, all those tribes might have been now in possession of the arts and enjoyments of civilization. I care not what dreamers and politicians and travellers and writers may say to the contrary. I know the Indian character, and I confidently avow, that if one-third of the many millions of dollars our Government has appropriated within the last twenty-five years, for the benefit of the Indian population, ' had been honestly and judiciously applied, there would not at this time be a single tribe within the limits of our States and Territories, but would have been in the complete enjoyment of all the arts and all the comforts of civilized life. But there is not a tribe that has not been outraged and defrauded; and nearly all the wars we have prosecuted against the Indians, have grown out of the bold frauds, and the cruel injustice, played off upon them by our Indian agents and their accomplices. But the purposes for which these vast annuities and enormous contingent advances were made, have only led to the destruction of the constitutions of thousands, and the increase of immorality among the Indians. We can not measure the desolating effects of intoxicating liquors, among the Indians, by any analogy drawn from civilized life. With the red man the consequences are a thousand times more frightful' Were Gen. Houston now living, he could have added to this statement from the London Examiner:
"When Captain John Smith, and his swash-bucklering cavaliers landed in the ' Empire of Virginia,' the aborigines of the United States, judging from the traces which they have left behind, could not have been less than four or five millions in number. We question if, at the present moment, they number five hundred thousand. Driven from bank to wall, and from wall to ditch, they have contested every foot-breadth of the weary road over which they have had to retreat, to make way for the Anglo-Saxon flood. Disease, whiskey, misery untold, and villainous saltpetre have civilized them off of the face of the earth, once their own. Once, all the region east of the Mississippi, from Maine to Louisiana, was thickly peopled with the prosperous villages of those whom the old travellers called ' the savages.' No part of America now shows so thickly populated a country, or so joyous a savage race as those who there hunted in the woods, and paddled their birch canoes, or Mandan coracles. With the exception of a few all but civilized fragments of tribes in one or two of the States, there is not now one single Indian who owns to the name, in all that wide region. A swarthy, keen-eyed lawyer, pleading in the Supreme Court of New York, or a very dark-haired gentleman who sits next to you in a general's uniform at a State dinner in the White House, are, to the keenest ethnological eye, about the only signs of the now thickly peopled States, covered with cities and towns, having been once inhabited only by dwellers in wigwams, who fished the salmon, and hunted the bear and the deer, with no man to make them afraid."