Indian Agent: Peter Ellis Bean in Mexican Texas

Chapter 21. Bean and the Historians

B efore bean’s memoir saw print in the mid-1850s, historians knew little of Philip Nolan’s exploits and even less of Bean’s. Books published in the 1830s, such as Mary Austin Holley’s Texas (1836) and David B. Edward’s The History of Texas: Or the Emigrant’s, Farmer’s & Politician’s Guide (1836), were more directed at luring American settlers to the land of milk and honey than telling its history. In the minds of these writers, the real history of Texas only dated back to the arrival of Austin’s Anglo-American colonists. At least both authors presented historical documents of interest. Among the many documents that Edward published was a petition that delegates to the October 1832 Convention at San Felipe had addressed to the Mexican Congress, naming many of the ills suffered because of the union with Coahuila and supporting separate statehood for Texas. A section of this petition (drafted by Charles S. Taylor) demonstrates uncharacteristic Anglo-Texan concern for the Cherokees and how they had become “discontented, unfriendly and hostile” because the Mexican government , that is, that of Coahuila y Texas joined, had not made good on its promises of land. This deplorable situation, said the petitioners, had to be corrected lest it lead to trouble. Is the following passage an oblique reference to Indian Agent Bean? The Indians’ repeated request to obtain their rights, are unattended to; because an accredited agent of the government has been illegally suspended, by a military officer of the last dynasty, who, in continuance of his system of deception and conciliation, and with a view to enlist their aid [against us], declared to the Cherokees (at the time we began to evince a disposition of throwing from our necks the insupportable weight of military oppression)—“The Americans grasping for land, intend making the attempt of driving all my Chapter 21 Bean and the Historians countrymen from this State; and an extirpation of you all will soon follow.”1 It seems likely that Bean is the “illegally suspended” agent and the quote comes from Piedras, “a military officer of the last dynasty” who was trying to rally the Indians to his side in 1832. As previously noted, the fact that Piedras was willing to use the Indians in his contest with the Anglo and Tejano rebels doomed him in their estimation. The prospect of anyone “settling domestic difficulties with the tomahawk and scalping knife” was more than the settlers could abide. Better to trust a man like Bean with keeping the Indians quiet, as he had in the past. Even with Piedras’s ouster in August, it was generally recognized that some action was necessary on the question of Indian land rights. We may be sure that events at Anáhuac and Nacogdoches were fresh in the minds of the fifty-eight delegates who met in October. But the political chief ruled that their proceedings were illegal and did not forward the colonists’ “Address” to the Mexican Congress.2 Despite this rebuff, another gathering was called in April 1833. As observed, Sam Houston played an important role in this Convention, chairing the committee that drew up the constitution and making rousing speeches on how Texas needed to chart a course of its own. Oddly, the “Memorial” to Congress in support of the proposed constitution has nothing about the plight of the Cherokees and their unrecognized land claims in Texas. Perhaps this is because the document bears the name of David Burnet and not Sam Houston. Why had Houston not pushed the Cherokee agenda to the extent that delegates did in 1832, shortly before his arrival on the scene? He later claimed it was because he did not understand the issues involved, but surely news of Bowl’s land problems in Texas had reached him in Indian Territory where Houston had been adopted into the Cherokee tribe. Edward was convinced that the Cherokees and allied tribes were going to be gypped out of their lands above Nacogdoches, no matter how the imminent Anglo-Hispano struggle ended. Texans hated his book because he had such a low opinion of their manners, morals, and state of civilization. Houston, however, read portions to Congress in his 1839–40 defense of Cherokee land rights—confusing the author with the empresario Haden Edwards.3 Two important books appeared in 1841 that actually had pretensions of being histories. One was Henry Stuart Foote’s Texas and the Texans: Or Advance of...