Cherokee County, Texas

Chief Bowles Monument

Chief Diwali Bowles 1756 - Jul. 16, 1839

Chief Bowles was born in North Carolina about 1756. Settlers from a North Carolina settlement killed Bowles father when Bowles was a young boy and that the vengeful fourteen year old killed his fathers murderers. Chief Bowles and his people lived in the valley of the St. Francis in southeast Missouri until 1811. During that year there was a violent earthquake. The ground shook and sank in many places. The Bowles and many of his people thought that the Great Spirit was warning them to move. Many then moved to Arkansas. Other Cherokees began to move to Arkansas and by 1813 about one third of the Eastern tribe was living west of the Mississippi. In Texas Chief Bowl became the primary "civil" chief or "peace chief" of a council that united several Cherokee villages. In 1822 he sent diplomatic chief Richard Fields to Mexico to negotiate with the Spanish government for a land grant or title to land occupied by Cherokees in East Texas. In 1827 he cooperated with the Mexican government in putting down the Fredonian Rebellion. In 1833 he made another attempt to secure from the Mexican government land on the Angelina, Neches, and Trinity rivers, but negotiations were interrupted by political unrest in Texas. In February of 1836 Sam Houston negotiated a treaty with Bowl's council, guaranteeing the tribe possession of lands occupied in East Texas. After the Texas Revolution, however, the treaty was invalidated by the Senate of the Republic of Texas. In desperation, Bowl briefly allied with agents soliciting allies for a Mexican reinvasion of Texas. Shortly thereafter, President Mirabeau B. Lamar ordered him and his people to leave Texas. After negotiations failed, Bowl mobilized his warriors to resist expulsion. On July 16, 1839, Chief Bowl was killed in the battle of the Neches. His body was left where it lay. No burial ever took place. On this site, the scene of the last engagement between the Cherokees and whites in Texas, the state of Texas erected a marker in 1936.