Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Quote
My point is that I woder if some of the places were named for tribes that actually had nothing to do with the area.


I would take the view that groups fromm different tribal groups ended up just about everywhere during the upheavals of the Texan period.

Ford mentions that his Caddo and Tonkawan Indian allies possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of Western Texas and Oklahoma. Be hard to get that without going. Likewise Delawares were among the most frequently-hired scouts for West Texas expeditions.

Somewhere recently in print I came across reference to the Seminoles being already present and feared south of the Border in Mexico by the time of the Mexican War. That would be a scant five years after their removal to Oklahoma from Florida.

And then there's the example of Sequoyah, the famous Tennesee Cherokee, late of Oklahoma, dying in Mexico in 1843 while seeking to contact Cherokees living down there.

Jumping ahead to 1861 and moving to Arizona, turns out the first "White" teamsters tirtured and killed by the Chiricahuas in the aftermath of the Bascomb debacle were actually a party of unfortunate Cherokees.

Plus the example of Shawnee scalphuntes in Mexico, one could go on and on....

The Kickapoos? orginally Eastern Woodlands in the Ohio Territory, they show up in East and Central Texas prior to 1840, whupped the Confederates out by San Angelo in 1864, and we know they got as far West as at least the Front Range in Colorado.

Anyhoo... with respect to actual Pawnees in Texas, this from Texas History Online....

When the French were removed from Louisiana in the Treaty of Paris (1763), the Pawnees began suffering attacks from British-armed Sioux and Osage Indians. As a result, several groups of Pawnees migrated south to join their Wichita kin on the Red River. In 1771 approximately 300 northern Pawnees visited the Wichitas on the Red River to trade. Rather than returning home, they merged with the Wichitas and became known as the Asidahesh.

In February 1795 a group of Pawnees, along with Wichitas and Taovayas, visited San Antonio to report injuries that they had received at the hands of Americans and expressed interest in securing friendship with the Spanish.

As to Indians here in the Nineteenth Century, Moore writes...

The Second Congress also made a special effort to study the Indians of Texas, Senator Isaac Burton, former Texas Ranger captain, was now chairman of the senate's standing committee on Indian Affairs. In secret sessions held on October 12, 1837, Burton's committee reviewed intelligence that recognised twenty-seven different bands of Indians living in Texas.

These were...

East Texas

Alabamas
Biloxis
Cherokees
Chickasaws
Coushattas
Delawares
Huawanies
Kickapoos,
Meninominees
Muscogees
Potawatomi
Shawnees

Prairies

Abadaches
Anadarkos
Ayish
Caddos
Comanches
Ionis
Kichais
Nacodoches
Skidi Pawnee
Towash
Tawakoni
Wacos

West Texas

Karankawas
Lipans
Tonkawas

Not sure where the capitol of Texas was in 1837, Washington-on-the-Brazos? So I dunno what they considered "west" vs. "prairie" in 1837.

Note the Meninominees in the mix, IIRC the rest of their kin were up in Wisconsin.

Birdwatcher


The Cherokee's that you speak of, was it those who were removed from the SE via the "Trail Of Tears" or did they migrate West on their own accord?

Many refused to go on the "Trail Of Tears" and fled to what is now the GSMNP in E. TN. & W. NC.

Those who fled to the mountains, their descendants make up the Eastern Band of the Cherokee's, with a Reservation at Cherokee, NC. on the edge of the GSMNP. If you've never been there, it's worth the trip to see and explore the area.