Chief Duwali Boles “Bold Hunter”
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By Line – Fort Smith, Arkansas
Sunday, February 1, 2026, 9:00 am
Lost Prairie Raid of 1820
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/lost-prairie-raid-of-1820-18248/
Many did move, but a few did not. There were divisions and interpersonal struggles among the Arkansas Cherokees, and those differences made a move north, closer to other Cherokee settlements, untenable. Therefore, a band led by Duwali (also known as the Bowl, John Bowles, or Tewulle) moved south, entering the Red River Valley, with the Caddos’ permission, in the fall of 1819.
Duwali
Duwali was born in North Carolina and grew up close to Tsiyu Gansini (Dragging Canoe) and other Cherokee leaders noted for their opposition to white encroachment. Linked to several instances of violence between Cherokees and white settlers, Duwali crossed the Mississippi River in the 1780s, seeking refuge outside of the United States. The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, put him and his close associates back in American territory, and he and other Cherokee communities were on the south side of the Arkansas River when the Treaty of 1817 was signed. Rather than comply with the demand to move north, they opted to move far south to the Great Bend of the Red River.
The Red River in the 1810s
The choice of the Red River reflects several complex realities of Arkansas in the 1810s. The area was American territory under the Louisiana Purchase, but the Caddos held the real power, and it was the Caddos, not the U.S. government, who gave the Cherokees permission to settle there. U.S. government representatives at the nearby Sulphur Fork Factory note the importance of the Caddos in relations with Native American groups in the region and onto the Great Plains, and in international politics between themselves, the United States, and the Kingdom of Spain.
At the same time, American settlers from the east began to arrive, drawn by the sandy soils that made the area, and not the Delta, the early focus of the cotton frontier. Many of these early cotton settlements were operated by enslaved laborers. These American settlers were drawn to the prairies that dissected the canebrakes and forests of the area, as these needed less clearing than other lands. These early settlements included those on Long Prairie, Elam’s Prairie, and Lost Prairie.
The Cherokees’ first village was not on Lost Prairie on the south bank of the Red River but instead on the north side, in present-day Hempstead County. They moved to Lost Prairie after a few months in hopes that American settlers would see the south bank as Spanish, not American territory, and stay away. Traders in the area, including men like Robert Musick, hounded Cherokee settlers for their trade; according to government reports, the move to Lost Prairie was in part to get away from these merchants, who had a reputation for underhanded business tactics.
Their second village, on Lost Prairie, became the site of the 1820 raid. Historical and archaeological research on contemporary Cherokee settlements would suggest a small town consisting of log cabins furnished with items drawn both from traditional Cherokee culture and active engagement with international markets. The things they surrounded themselves with were likely similar in many ways to their non-native fellow immigrants, but the social lines drawn between them and their neighbors would prove to be deep and very important.
Fighting over Horses
For Cherokee and American settlers, the movement into Arkansas continued a long conflict. Many American families were coming from Tennessee and North Carolina and likely had family histories that involved fights with the Cherokees there. This foretold little goodwill between these new arrivals.
The flashpoint for the Lost Prairie Raid of 1820 may well have been an event that took place a few weeks before when some horses disappeared from a farm at Pecan Point. The Cherokees were blamed for their disappearance, and a group of white settlers set out from Pecan Point, in the vicinity of present-day Texarkana (Miller County), to reacquire them. They caught up with a group of Cherokees and Caddos who were in possession of the horses, exchanged gunfire, and chased off the Native Americans, save for one man, named in the papers as “Hog in a Pen,” who was to be taken back to Pecan Point for trial. Hog in a Pen likely faced a bleak future as a Native American apprehended for horse theft in the early nineteenth century. He was not without support, however, as the Arkansas Gazette reported: “As Hog in a Pen was being led back to Pecan Point, the group he had been with apparently regrouped and attacked his captors, freeing him. The captors returned to Pecan Point, with horses but without captives.”
There are two dimensions of this event that likely sparked intense feeling among white settlers. First, fighting against Cherokees was something they had grown up with, and having those conflicts in Arkansas would likely echo to their previous lives in Tennessee. Second, the Indian group involved in the fighting was reported to be a mix of both Cherokees and Caddos. This may have been seen as a sign of intertribal alliance against white settlers, provoking more concern. A brief report of the incident that appeared in the Washington Telegraph in July 1820 closes with “it would agree with the wishes of all the inhabitants on Red River to have them removed to the lands allotted to them in this territory.”
On June 20, 1820, around the time of the raid, Territorial Governor James Miller wrote to the U.S. Secretary of War, asking that annuities paid to tribes be routed through his office. He could then use this for leverage against the tribes then in Arkansas. He specifically referenced the Cherokees on the Red River as forming a “banditti” with other tribes in the area to steal horses and kill white settlers’ cattle and hogs.
The Raid
Details about the summer 1820 raid come from a letter dated August 19, 1821, by George Gray, agent at the Sulphur Fork Factory, near present-day Doddridge (Miller County). Note that this is over a year after the event took place, and he relates what was told to him by survivors, as he did not witness the event himself. He identified his source of information as a Cherokee leader who was visiting the Sulphur Fork Factory to seek help in obtaining recompense for a large amount of property lost during the raid. This is the only known written account of the engagement, and though the informer is referred to as a “Cherokee Indian Chief,” there is no indication that it was Duwali who made the claim.
First, the raid took place in “June or July” of 1820. This would be roughly one to two months after the affair involving Hog in a Pen. Given the concern that the event appears to have created among local settlers, it is likely that the raid was a response to this armed opposition by Cherokees and their allies.
For additional information:
Drexler, Carl G. “Dispossessing Duwali on Lost Prairie.” https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/disposessing-duwali-on-lost-prairie/ (accessed October 11, 2024).
Indians in Arkansas: The Cherokee
Arkansas Archeological Survey | Fayetteville AR | 479.575.3556
www.arkansasarcheology.org
The Cherokee in Arkansas had several promi¬nent Chiefs over the years. One was called “The Bowl.” He and several families settled south of Dardanelle on Dutch Creek, but they did not stay there long. By 1819 they had moved south to a prairie near the Red River in present-day Miller County, and after a year there, they moved on to Texas.
ETHNOHISTORY OF THE WESTERN CHEROKEES IN TEXAS
by
DIANNA EVERETT, B.S., M.A.
A DISSERTATION IN HISTORY
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Only one scholar, Ernest W. Winkler, State Librarian of Texas, has done primary research on the Western Cherokees in Texas. His article, "The Cherokee Indians in Texas" [Southwestern Historical Quarterly 7 (1903)], begins as Duwali's Cherokees enter Texas in 1819 and ends in 1832, leaving out a most critical time for these people. Albert Woldert's "The Last Days of the Cherokees in Texas and the Life and Death of Chief Bowles" [Chronicles of Oklahoma 1 (1925)], is based on secondary sources, primarily Starr and Winkler. Dorman Winfrey's "Chief Bowles of the Texas Cherokee" [Chronicles of Oklahoma 32 (1954)], relies primarily on Winkler's article through 1832 and on Woldert's through 1839.
In the summer of 1791 forty Cherokee headmen agreed o meet with Blount on the Holston River near present Knoxville. Leaders of the Overhill and Middle Towns were in the majority, but recalcitrant chiefs Dragging Canoe, Bloody Fellow, and John Watts, of the Chickamaugas, and Doublehead and Duwali, of the Valley Towns, attended.
In November of 1792 Bloody Fellow came to the port city to request the reconstruction of two abandoned French forts near the Cherokee nation. Then, in the winter of 1793, Bloody Fellow returned to New Orleans with Fool Charles, Breath, and Duwali (Bowl), all headmen hostile to the Americans.
The national council, which v/as revived in 1798 in response to Anglo-American demands for a central entity with which to negotiate, infrequently convened. The Overhills and Lower Towns both had separate regional councils of community chiefs, almost all of whom by this time were of mixed blood, who met to direct the affairs of each region. The more outspoken of the Lower Town chiefs were Doublehead, Talontuskee, John Jolly, Duwali, and George and John Lowrey. All except Doublehead were mixed bloods, and all were relatively young, certainly not old enough to qualify for the traditional designation of "beloved man."
Chiefs who had acceded to the treaties of 1805 and 1806 and were considered to be outcasts because they had traded tribal lands also chose to leave. Talontuskee, Duwali, and other leaders found themselves in this position and chose emigration, which amounted to a traditional withdrawal from the group decision. These situations and other social conditions prompted a growing segment of the tribe to seek refuge in the west.
In the early months of 1810 several chiefs led parties of emigrants down the Tennessee River and across the Mississippi. In January Duwali (Bowl) and Sanlowee jointly led seventy-five from their village at Little Hiwassee. The method of travel was typical of most of the emigrant groups: the men, women, and children descended the river in canoes and flatboats, while a group of twelve men herded the horses along the riverbank. 48
Secretary of War 22 January 1810, RCAT, Roll 5, #2442. According to Grant Foreman, Indians and Pioneers (1930) and Mary Whatley Clarke, Chief Bowles and the Texas Cherokees (1971), the migration of Duwali's people from Tennessee took place in 1794 following an incident of violence which these two writers attribute to Duwali.
Both Foreman and Clark took their information from the reminiscences of Cephas Washburn, a Presbyterian missionary in Arkansas from 1820 to 1830. Washburn had heard the story in New Orleans from a woman who claimed to be a survivor of the attack. According to her story, Duwali's warriors had attacked a boatload of Anglos led by William and Alexander Scott; the Indians had killed all but the women and children, whom they set adrift in a boat. In Washburn's version, repeated by Foreman and Clarke, Duwali and company ran away to Arkansas to avoid punishment. Foreman also referred to a claims adjustment case filed by the Scott family [in American State Papers, Claims (1834), 9] in 1815 and to an article in the Knoxville Gazette of September, 1794. While both of these sources relate substantially the same story concerning the incident, neither mentions Duwali or "Bowl" as the perpetrator; on the contrary, the Gazette article places the leadership of the party with a Cherokee named "White-Man-Killer."
In 1819 and 1820 many Cherokees openly expressed dissatisfaction with their situation in Arkansas. In April of 1819 naturalist Thomas Nuttall, touring the Cherokee country, noted that one prominent chief, objecting to the agent's order to move north of the Arkansas, was threatening to "proceed across Red River and petition land from the Spaniards." 33 Several months later, Jacob Fowler, U.S. Factor at the Sulphur Fork factory, which had been established in the summer of 1818 at the confluence of the South Little River and the Red, noted that many Cherokees, as well as Delawares, Creeks, and Choctaws, were entering the area and settling along the Red River. He also noted the continuing existence of the Cherokee village previously established near present Fulton, Arkansas. In mid-1819 a party of Cherokees, possibly 35
led by Duwali, moved southward to the Red. In the autumn of 1820 another Cherokee group announced its impending departure. 36 By the winter of 1820 there were at least 120 Cherokees, in addition to several hundred Delawares, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, residing in the great bend of the river 37
Those Cherokees who were in the process of moving from the Arkansas to the Red River were also encountering difficulties. Many came to the Sulphur Fork factory to trade, and in the opinion of Agent Fowler they were "dissatisfied, and entirely undetermined about a future settlement--they hunt very little and are generally 55 destitute of almost every necessity." Close proximity to Anglo farmers in and around Lost Prairie tempted impoverished Cherokee hunters to expropriate the settlers' cattle and other commodities. In April of 1820 the Anglos of Hempstead County wrote to Arkansas Governor James Miller and recited a familiar litany of offenses allegedly committed since 1817 by Cherokees, Osages, Caddoes, and 56 assorted "strolling bands" of Indians in Lost Prairie. In the following month another citizens' group alleged that Bowl (Duwali), Hog-in-the-Pen, and other Cherokees had recently stolen horses from a resident of Pecan Point. The settlers demanded that the Governor remove the Cherokees and send them back to the Arkansas River 57
In December of 1819, during the hunting season, the first Cherokees to settle permanently in Texas crossed the Red River into presumed Spanish territory. The leader of this group was probably Duwali, a prominent Western Cherokee chief. Many years later Duwali recalled that he had led his village from the Arkansas River to a new home in Lost Prairie. After a brief sojourn on the Red River, he and his followers had relocated their village further westward, at the Three Forks of the Trinity River, near present Dallas. They remained on the Trinity for several years, although they were constantly at war with the Taovayas over hunting rights. 69 At an undetermined point in late 1821 or early 1822 Duwali's people moved eastward into the uninhabited region north of Nacogdoches. Others of the tribe soon followed Duwali's example.
For the ensuing two decades the Western Cherokees, as well as other southeastern tribes, made a stand in east Texas. For the first decade at least, the Mexican government welcomed them as a buffer between Texas and the advancing American frontier. Most of the Cherokees cleared land and carved out farms in the uninhabited region north of Nacogdoches, on the upper branches of the Neches, Angelina, and Sabine Rivers. By late 1822 their population had grown to approximately three hundred. In November of that year, nev/ly-appointed Governor of Texas Jose Felix Trespalacios described them as able workers, manufacturers, herdsmen, and "users of firearms." Many of them, he said, understood English. 72
Duwali and other chiefs led their followers deep into the east Texas woods and set them about the business of building homes, clearing underbrush, breaking ground in the old Caddo fields, planting crops, and making initial contacts with indigenous peoples and with other immigrant tribes. During these years the "Texas Cherokees," as they came to be known, appear to have experienced few cultural changes. Further, for six years, from 1821 to 1826, they remained for the most part undisturbed by the spectre of Anglo-American encroachment which had stimulated repeated Cherokee migration over the past century. It was apparent, however, that Cherokee leaders had quickly adjusted to the concept of holding legal title to real property. Cherokees realized that to retain their homelands, they needed a treaty from a non-Indian sovereignty. For the first few years of the 1820s chiefs of the Western Cherokees in Texas made concerted efforts to persuade Mexican authorities officially to grant them a tract of land in eastern Texas.
In 1822 a Cherokee known as Richard Fields opened a contact which was to have far-reaching effects. In February of that year Fields wrote to Antonio Martinez, then governor of Texas. "What is to be done with us poor Indians?" asked the Cherokee.
We have some grants that was give to us [sic] when we came under the Spanish government and we wish you to send us answer by the next mail whether it might be reversed or not, and if it is permitted we will come as soon as possible to present ourselves before you. . . ."1
His request opened a lengthy period of negotiations between the Cherokees and the Mexican government.
The outcome of this diplomatic mission seemed to portend future good for the Texas Cherokees. Although Fields returned to Duwali and the council with no concrete agreement or land title, it appeared that he had gained some advantage for his people.
Saucedo also assured Fields that the Cherokees and the land claim "for your new colony" would be protected, and he reiterated the concept that the Cherokees' agent to Mexico (presumably Hunter) was rebuffed 67 because of improper credentials. Austin soon write to Fields, Duwali and the other chiefs to reassure them that the tribe's original land claim would be protected, provided that the Indians dissolve their alliance with the rebels. Austin also pointed out that Edwards contract had 68 been cancelled. Duwali accepted the arguments. In early January Saucedo issued an amnesty proclamation and sent three commissioners to convince the rebels to surrender. Although they did not visit the Cherokees, the commissioners ascertained that Duwali and Gatunwali had refused to join Fields and Hunter in the confederation. Gatunwali, Duwali, and several other Cherokees, as well as chiefs of the Shawnees, Delawares and Kickapoos met with Bean on 25 January and he reiterated his earlier arguments. 69
News that the Cherokees were aligning with the Mexicans, even for the purpose of chastising the Comanches, alarmed many Texans. In September Duwali and Gatunwali held another inter-village council and assured Houston and the Texans that they were interested in remaining at peace. Houston invited them to a council on the Brazos, and encouraged them to bring the Shawnees and others. 71 The Consultation watched the Cherokees for the next month, but Duwali and Gatunwali convinced several investigators that they were not going to cause trouble. At a council held in October, Duwali revealed that he had recently gone to San Antonio to talk to Ugartechea, who had tried to enlist the Cherokees' aid against the Texan militia. Duwali and his chiefs had chosen to remain neutral. 72 Meanwhile, General Cos reached and occupied San Antonio in mid-October, and that town was under siege by Texans when the Consultation of Texans met in November in San Felipe. A very few days after the assembly convened, its delegates passed a resolution of friendship for the Cherokees and other tribes.
On 13 November 1835, fifty-four members of the Consultation pledged "the public faith, on the part of the people of Texas" to give the Cherokees their land. The declaration cancelled all land grants and surveys made in the region, and promised the government's protection to the Cherokees and established their claim to lands "north of the San Antonio Road and the Neches, and west of the Angeline and Sabine Rivers." 73 In late November, Houston and two other emissaries were sent to the Cherokees to begin negotiating a treaty. Eleven Cherokee chiefs and one Shawnee Chief met with the delegates at Sims' farm near Nacogdoches. Duwali was not present, and Houston immediately wrote to the chief to assure him that your land is secured to you. So soon as it is possible you will find Commissioners sent to you, to hold a treaty and fix your lines. I expect that I will be sent to you, and I will then take you the Great paper that was signed by all the council.74 The Texans promised the Cherokees protection for their land claim and also offered them powder and lead with 75
Duwali and his councillors waited for the Texans to send them a team of negotiators. Finally, in December, Houston and two other commissioners were delegated by the Consultation to make a treaty with the Cherokees in order 76 to ensure their neutrality. On 22 February, Houston and John Forbes appeared in Duwali's village. Although Duwali had known Houston for years, Houston had to use his considerable influence with the chiefs to convince them that the treaty would be in their best interests. In vain the commissioners tried to persuade the "beloved man" and his councillors to exchange their present claim for lands elsewhere. In the end, however, the Cherokees and the Texans compromised. 77
On 23 February 1836, the contract was signed. The Cherokees and "twelve associate bands"--Alabamas, Biloxies, Choctaws, Coushattas, Delawares, Kickapoos, Quapaws, Shawnees, Caddoes, Unataquas [Anadarkos], and Tahoocattakes [sic]—were to be given a reservation. Its boundary, which considerably reduced the claim of 1831-1833, began at the crossing of the Angelina River and the Bexar Road; ran up the Angelina to the first big creek, just below the Shawnee village (near present Henderson), up the creek to its source (northeast), then due north to the Sabine, west along the Sabine to its headwaters, then down to the Neches, and down the Neches on the east side, to the crossing of the San Antonio Road on the Neches. (Please refer to map.) The Indians were supposed to move within these bounds before November of 1836 and were to cede any lands presently occupied outside the limits. An agency was to be created within the reservation, and the government of Texas promised to regulate trade with the Indians.
Chiefs signing for the Cherokees were "Colonel Boles, Big Mush, Samuel Benge, Oosoota, Corn Tassle, The Egg, John Bowls, and Tunnettee." No chiefs of "associate bands" 78 affixed their marks to the agreement.
On 16 July (1839) Burleson's and Rusk's contingents, moving north, passed and burned the Delaware village and met the Cherokees, Delawares, Shawnees, and Kickapoos in battle in the Neches River bottom. Duwali met death that day, shot by a Texas militiaman. Gatunwali also died, along with one hundred others. On the morning of 17 July, no Cherokees or other immigrant Indians remained to carry on the battle. 44