Cherokee leader arrives in Mexico City seeking tribal land grant

On this day in 1826, Cherokee leader John Dunn Hunter arrived in Mexico City to renew negotiations with the Mexican government for land for a Cherokee settlement in Texas. Hunter was promised land to be granted to individual Indian settlers but was unsuccessful in getting a tribal grant with the right of self-government. He returned to East Texas and, with Cherokee diplomatic chief Richard Fields, began negotiations with Martin Parmer and his associates for the so-called Fredonian Republic, which would have divided Texas between the Indians and the Anglo-Americans. The Mexican government moved quickly to quash the uprising, however, and the Cherokee council refused to take part in the Fredonian Rebellion. Hunter, an American born about 1796, claimed to have been captured by the Cherokees as a child. Although he lived with the Indians until about 1816, he received a fairly good education and traveled considerably through the United States and England. While in England Hunter wrote an account which was published in London in 1824 under the title of Memoirs of a Captivity among the Indians of North America. Dr. Hunter, as he was often called, returned to the Cherokees at one of their East Texas villages in 1825. After the Cherokee council repudiated their agreement with Parmer and his allies, Hunter and Fields were tried by the council and executed in 1827.