I left with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a copy of Professor Dunbar’s
letter, with a request that he would favor me with any information in the
government archives which would throw light upon the inquiries made. Under
date of the first instant Mr. Vallarta has sent me notes of such information
as was attainable in answer to the inquiries of Professor Dunbar. The notes
also embrace historical data in reference to the various Indian tribes which
formerly inhabited the old frontiers of Texas and New Mexico, and they may
be found of interest to the Indian Bureau of our government. I therefore
inclose a translation to enable you to send a copy thereof to the Department
of the Interior should you think proper to do so.
[Inclosure to inclosure 2 in No.
657.]
Historical sketch of Indians.
The Indian tribes which are found at present established in the territory
of the United States, or which originally inhabited our old frontiers,
with those with which the Government of Mexico has had direct relations,
are the following:
- I.
- The Cados, who inhabited the northeast of Nacogdoches in the
State of Texas. In February of the year 1822 two chiefs of this
tribe came to Mexico, commissioned to congratulate the
government and General Iturbide upon the independence of the
Mexican nation.
- II.
- The Comanches of Texas. In January, 1823, a chief named
Guonigne presented himself in Mexico, in company with others of
his nation, and negotiated an alliance with the Mexican
empire.
- III.
- The Cherokees (Chiroquis) of Louisiana. In January, 1823,
certain chiefs of this nation, named Richard Fielding, or Fields
(half-breed), and X. Bowles came to Mexico, to whom the Mexican
José Antonio Mexia served as interpreter, asking for lands upon
which to establish themselves.
- IV.
- The Sahnanos, Creeks (Criques), Kickapoos, Quicapus, and
Corhates, established to the north of Nacogdoches, had friendly
relations with Mexico from 1827 to 1834. In 1827 certain chiefs
made a contract with General Bustamante.
- V.
- The Seminoles, Kickapoos, and Muscogees (Muscogos), headed by
Mountain Cat (Gato del Monte), Sun Set
(Bajodel Sol), and other chiefs, made
an agreement with the government of General Arista in the year
1850.
- VI.
- The Kickapoos sent a mission to Mexico in 1885 to congratulate
Maximilian. They afterwards solicited from the government of Mr.
Juarez, and were assigned, lands upon which to establish
themselves in Santa Rosa, Coahuila.
The tribes of the United States which formerly had direct relations with
the Government of New Spain, were:
- I.
- The Olibas or Olipas, “who inhabited the country between
Florida and Tampico.” They were brought under the government of
Panuco about the middle of the sixteenth century by the priest
Andres de Olmos. They established themselves at a place situated
close to the sea, at 23° 12ʹ north latitude and 276° 20ʹ west
longitude from the meridian of Teneriffe. These Indians, who
have disappeared completely, gave their name to the State of
Tamaulipas (Tam), place (olipas), of the Olibas.
- II.
- The Apalaches of Eastern Florida, who, after the cession of
that province to the United States by the treaty of the 22d of
February, 1819, were transported to the plains of the river
Chachalacos, eight leagues to the north of the present city of
Vera Cruz, where they founded the town of San Carlos, and their
descendants still exist.
The most ancient residence of the Pawnee tribes is in the region situated
on the banks of the Missouri River, between 43° and 45° north latitude.
They are located there by the designers of the charts made in the
seventeenth century, corroborated by information furnished by the French
of Illinois and Louisiana. The great distance which separates these
territories from the town of San Gerónimo, of the Tahos, which was the
most northern establishment of the Kingdom of New Mexico, and from the
settlement of Nacogdoches, which was the most eastern of the province of
Texas, as well as the intermediate location, on one side, of the Yuta
and the Apache herdsmen, and on the other side, of the Arkansas (Arcansacs) and other tribes of Old Louisiana, are
motives for believing that if, at any time, relations existed with the
Pawnees (Pawnis), they were of very little
importance, and were probably confined to the contact which certain
cattle-herders of New Mexico, drawn in that direction by the spirit of
adventure, or favored by the friendship of the Yuta and Apache herdsmen,
may have had with them. Nevertheless, it may have been that certain
Pawnees have separately traded or bartered with Mexicans of Tahos, since
Gregg, who surely had reasons for knowing, says, in reference to the
Pawnees, that in his time they had their principal seat on the tributary
of the river Nebraska or Platte, called Loup Fork or Wolf River, and
that certain chiefs of that tribe wandered on foot over the whole plain,
frequently as far as the (what then was) frontier of Mexico.
It might have been also that the Pawnees maintained good relations with
the Spanish emigrants from Louisiana, who founded the town of
Nacogdoches about the year 1778, but of this there is no evidence.
The ancient chronicles referring to New Mexico indicate something that
might be translated in the meaning of the traditions to which the letter
of Mr. Dunbar alludes; [Page 539] but
those chronicles refer to events which took place at the end of the
sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, notably
referring to the entrance of the conqueror Juan de Oñate, in the year
1599, and it would be very strange if the Pawnees should remember events
of a time so remote. Notwithstanding this opinion, the following is what
the priest Geronimo de Zárate Salmeron states is his “relation of all
things which have been seen and known in New Mexico, as well by sea as
by land, from the year 1538 to 1626”:
§76. “In a glance which our men cast to the east they saw in a band 5,000
Indians all ready for war in march toward the north. These Indians are
of the nation of Arkansaws (Ercansaque), who live
a hundred leagues from New Mexico towards the northeast, and are mortal
enemies of the Xindanes (Tintong and Great-Tans) of the hunters or
Quiyiras.”
§108. * * * “the Arkansaws (Ercansaques) inhabit
that section of country which, at forty-six degrees of north latitude
and one hundred and sixty-two of longitude, extends obliquely to the
shelter formed by certain mountain ridges to a river, the Nebraska or
Platte River, which flows northeast-southeast, and incorporates with
another (the Missouri?), which runs into the Mississippi. They form a
part of the Pawnees (Pauanas?) (Pawnees?), and are subject to the French
of Louisiana.”
This is the information which, for the present, can be communicated to
Mr. Dunbar, of whose request note has been taken, in order that in the
future other facts may be found which may interest the object of his
investigations.
