by the army in September. Although Osceola carries
a white flag, he is betrayed and taken captive along
with 80 Seminole warriors. The following January,
Osceola dies of malaria while held prisoner at Fort
Moultrie near Charlestown, South Carolina.
1838The Texas Rangers go to war with the
Texas Cherokee.
Beginning in 1818, Cherokee led by Chief Philip
Bowles moved to what is now eastern Texas as
whites took over their homeland. Although Sam
Houston, the first president of the Republic of
Texas, promised the Texas Cherokee that they
could stay in the region, his successor Mirabeau
B. Lamar responds to pressure from Texas whites
to remove Bowles’s people. Lamar offers to pay for
their removal, but the Cherokee refuse to leave.
The president then declares war “without mitiga-
tion and compassion” on the Indians.
Five hundred Texas Rangers march on the
Cherokee’s village, mercilessly attacking the inhab-
itants and burning their houses and possessions.
Among those killed are Chief Bowles, whose bodyA winter village of the Mandan, painted by Karl Bodmer several years before an 1837 smallpox epidemic
devastated the tribe (National Archives, Neg. no. 111-SC-92845)