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The Cherokee Lineby
Bob Bowman | |
The
Cherokee Boundary Line, an important part of East
Texas, finally got the recognition it deserves recently in a ceremony on a
oiltop road north of Canton.
Officials
of the Van Zandt County Historical Commission, joined by two members of the Texas
Historical Commission, dedicated a Texas Historical Marker telling the story of
the boundary line, which once marked the boundary between Indian lands and Texas,
running from near Alto northward
to the Sabine River.
The Cherokees,
who called themselves Ani-Yunwiya, the "principal people," once were one
of the foremost Indian nations of the U.S.
Cherokee society reflected
an elaborate social and political structure built around a town ran by a council
dominated by older men. The Cherokees also had their own written language.
The Cherokee land grant once occupied parts of Van Zandt, Gregg, Wood, Smith,
Rusk and Cherokee counties and bordered six other counties.
Boundaries
were determined in a treaty with the Cherokees, but in 1839, after years of conflict,
the Republic of Texas drove many of the Cherokees into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
In 1844, surveyor William Angus ran a 38-mile-long line from the Neches
river west of Alto to the Sabine
River. Officials later used the line as the starting place for other early
surveys, including one creating Van Zandt County.
The new historical marker
stands at the junction of the Cherokee line and the Old Dallas-Shreveport Road
on Van Zandt County Road 1117.
The marker is the eighth to be placed along
the Old Dallas-Shreveport Road to identify and preserve the history of significant
locations, events and people who have added to the rich history of Van Zandt County.
And,
today, near the Oklahoma town of Tahlequah, the history of the Cherokees has been
preserved with a tribal museum and other tributes to their rich history. |
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