Cherokee is unique community in southern San Saba County, whose very name recalls a little-known chapter of Texas history. The Cherokee tribe had been one of the most populous and powerful tribes in the southeastern United States, considered by the English to be one of the “Civilized Tribes,” with their own printed language, farms, towns and even (by the 1820s) African slaves. When pressure from European settlers forced some of the Cherokees to move west, hundreds moved to Texas. When Sam Houston, a loyal friend who had lived with the Cherokees for several years in Tennessee, was elected president of the new Republic of Texas in 1836, Texas seemed to be almost a Promised Land to many of the Cherokee refugees.

But there were many in Texas who did not share Houston’s affection for the Cherokee tribe, and even while he was president the Texas senate refused to ratify the treaty he had signed or honor the Cherokee claims to the land in east Texas where they had settled. By the time Mirabeau Lamar was elected president in 1838, the Cherokee tribe felt totally betrayed, and tensions were high. When a plot by the Mexican government was uncovered to enlist their help against the Texas settlers, Lamar determined to expel the Cherokees from Texas completely.

The Cherokee War of 1839 was disastrous for the tribe, and most fled to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. A few warriors, under Chief John Bowles, attempted to reach Mexico by escaping through the Hill Country to Mexico. They were intercepted and annihilated on Christmas Day by a force under Colonel Edward Burleson. The creek which flowed into the Colorado River near the battleground was known thereafter as Cherokee Creek.

About fifteen years later, pioneers began building small communities along the creek. The town called Cherokee was one of a westward string of settlements across the southern half of San Saba County; a post office was established near there in 1858, moving several t ...

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