Setting the Stage
Redbone Progenitors and their families arrive to Spanish Texas
•
In 1721 a group of Cherokees moved west to the Rocky mountains., after a tribal
disagreement. Many years later this dislocated branch of the Cherokees began appearing in
the Neutral Zone and by 1820 they moved into Spanish held Texas. Among the names of the
east Texas Cherokee settlers were Duwali, (aka Colonel Bowls) Gatunwali, Fields, Bowls,
Bowles, Boles, Brown, Chicken Trotter, Corn Tassel, The Egg, Harris, Harlin, Cuktokeh
Jolly, Kanati (Long Turkey), Nekolake, Oosoota, Piggion, Saulowee (Tsulawi), Tahchee,
Talontuskee, Talihina (Mrs. Sam Houston), Toquo (Turkey), and many others. Dr. Kennedy
has identified Duwali as a Turkish word meaning "great leader”. The Cherokee Duwali was a
chief among the east Texas Cherokees . Chief Bowles or “Duwali” was the son of a Scottish
Highlander from North Carolina and a Cherokee woman. It is unclear when he was given
or assumed his Cherokee name of Duwali. Chief Duwali first led his people west to what is
now Arkansas. They lived there for a while. Later they moved to East Texas. After being cut
off from the Eastern Cherokees who stayed behind, Chief Duwali's Cherokees became the
Western band of the Cherokees.
•In artwork depicting Early Texas history, Sam Houston is wearing full Cherokee dress which he
was often noted for wearing. It would appear Sam Houston is wearing a “turban”? Could there be
a connection between this group of Cherokee and The Turks in the Carolina’s? Perhaps so?
Along with the Cherokee, several other tribes from the Southeastern United States also moved
into this region of Texas. These were the Alabama, the Coushatta, the Shawnee, the Biloxi, some
Creek Indians and a few other smaller groups.
After 1750 numerous Spanish cattlemen moved their herds into the Rio Grande, Nueces,
and San Antonio valleys. Tomas Sanchez located his herd near Laredo, and Enrique de
Villareal developed his Rincon del Oso Ranch on 400 sq mi (1,036 sq km) granted to him
along Corpus Christi Bay. Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon's Rancho Santa Petronilla was also
near Corpus Christi. Antonio Gil Ibarbo located large herds in East Texas around
Nacogdoches.
In the 1740s seventeen ranching families settled north of the Rio Grande, and by 1750 many
of these were among the first to move their herds to the Coastal Prairie between the Nueces
and Guadalupe rivers. Meanwhile, the settlements of Dolores and Laredo on the Rio
Grande became headquarters for many other Spanish ranches. The herds of Andalusian cattle
grew in number, became increasingly less domesticated, and by 1820 ranged as thousands of
wild cattle in the Brush Country of southern Texas.
While the Spanish were introducing their cattle of Iberian ancestry into Mexico and
southern Texas, the early colonists from northwestern Europe were introducing their breeds
of cattle to eastern North America and evolving an open-range cattle culture in South
Carolina. Their descendants brought cattle herds to East Texas during the 1820s, spreading
along the Coastal Prairie, Blackland Prairie, and Piney Woods . The Texas cattle herds
increased to the degree that in the mid-1830s, the estimated cattle population in the
Department of Brazos and Nacogdoches had risen to over 75,000 head.
•The multiethnic character of early Texas cattle ranching is suggested by the diverse origins of
the major stockmen. James Taylor White (Leblanc), a Cajun from Louisiana, owned the largest
herds east of the Trinity River by 1830, though he was soon rivaled by the "redbone"
Ashworths, Perkins, Dials and Johnsons who moved in from South Carolinian via Louisiana.
The families of mixed white, black, and Indian ancestry. Thomas O'Connor, an Irishman from
Wexford County, became the leading rancher in the Coastal Bend country north of Corpus
Christi in the 1840s, and the German Klebergs later helped build the famous King Ranch in
South Texas.
Among the early Angelina County stockmen were pioneering settler and cattleman James
Ashworth and his wife Mary (Polly) Perkins and their son-in-law Patrick Johnson, who
married their daughter Mary Vianna.
They arrived from Southwest Louisiana. The Ashworths and Johnsons as well as others such as
Dials and Goins were members of a Southwest Louisiana group of Redbones. The Redbones
are a dark-skinned people with Europen features who emigrated from the Pee Dee region of
South Carolina to South Louisiana about 1810. The Redbones brought their cattle culture
with them, and University of Texas geographer Terry Jordan credits the Redbones as inventing
the Texas cattle industry in Louisiana and bringing it to Texas. James Ashworth's brother,
Aaron, was an early settler in the Orange area and supplied beeves to feed Sam Houston's
army. It is said that Aaron Ashworth had over 3000 head of cattle in the woods.
•1803 Louisiana Purchase. The Neutral Territory or “No Man’s Land” Before there was a Texas,
both France and Spain claimed the region on both sides of the Sabine River--an area known as the
"neutral ground“, "no man's land“ or “Sabine Free because of early explorations by both nations.
French explorers claimed all land drained by the Mississippi River and its tributaries as Louisiana
Territory. Spain claimed all southern lands beginning with the first watershed west of the
Mississippi. The dispute arose over claims that the "first watershed" was the Sabine or the
Atchafalaya River. As a result the land between the two rivers was claimed by both nations. When
the U.S. purchased the Louisiana territory in 1803 and inherited France's claims, the U.S. and
Spain agreed that the disputed strip would be neutral territory until an agreement could be
reached by the two nations.
The strip soon became a refuge for outlaws and deserters seeking to avoid the laws of any
government, leading to the violent Regulator-Moderator War in Shelby and surrounding counties.
GTT ‘Gone To Texas’ was a contemporary term for fugitives from justice.
• Neutral Zone boundary was further confused in 1819 when the U.S. purchased Florida from
Spain and a new, tentative agreement established the Sabine as the international boundary. Texas,
at the time, was still Spanish territory, but became a part of Mexico when Mexico won its
independence from Spain. When the Republic of Texas was born in 1836, it became a matter of
urgency to mark the actual boundary between the Republic and the U.S. A joint commission was
established in 1838 to survey and map the land along the boundary.
•1821. George Orr moved from Louisiana to the Atascosito District of southeast Texas. He had
previously served as a captain in the Magee-Gutierez expedition against Spanish held Texas in
1813, which was an attempt by a private paramilitary group to wrest Texas from Spain.
•1817-1820 -- Jean Laffite occupied Galveston Island and used it as a base for his
smuggling and privateering operation.
•1820 William Goyens, Jr arrived in Texas.
•1822 Rebecca Nash daughter of Wm Nash, granddaughter of Thomas Nash/Ash & William H
Taylor migrate to Texas, DeWitt Colony were their 3rd child Feliciana is born.
•3 January 1823 -- Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government and
began colonization in the region of the Brazos River.
•1826 The Atascosita District bounded on the west by Austin’s Colony by the north Nacogdoches,
on the east by reserved lands on the Sabine, on the south by by the Gulf of Mexico including all
Islands and Bays within 3 leagues of sea shore. Listed as inhabitants include Redbone families,
Benjamin, Micheal, Thomas & William Nash families, George Orr, John & William Cherry, James
Griffin John Cotton, James Drake William H Taylor, George White, WM, Hugh B & John Johnson.
•1827 Joseph Willis, Apostle The Apostle to the Opelousas, The First Baptist Preacher of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ West of the Mississippi River. He went "far and wide" establishing a church
October 21, 1827, just seventeen miles from Orange, Texas, and the Texas State line near Edgerly,
Louisiana named Antioch Primitive Baptist Church.
•Jan 16, 1827 Listed under Capt Hugh B Long from Atascocita were mustered into service, Hugh
b & WM Johnson, Isaac Harris, Aaron & John Drake, James Griffin, Joseph Clark, John Cherry,
Thomas D Goin, Wm Taylor, William Roberts, Wm & Thomas Nash (returned Feb 1st)
•1829 Jim Bowie and his party held off a group of Indians at the San Saba Mines near Calf Creek in
Texas. He was accompanied by Matthew Doyal. Born in Kentucky, he grew up poor in Louisiana,
near some Redbone identified families, where with his brothers John and Rezin he eventually
became a slave-trader in association with Jean Lafitte, the pirate and hero of the War of 1812. The
brothers bought a sugar plantation and Jim became prominent in local society, serving in the state
legislature. In 1827 he killed two men during a savage gun and knife duel in Natchez and became a
fugitive GTT. In San Antonio Jim became friendly with the vice governor and married his
daughter in 1831 after acquiring Mexican citizenship and land grants. In 1835, a widower, he
joined the revolution and was elected colonel of militia, in which capacity he participated in the
battle of Concepción and the first siege of the Alamo that ended with the expulsion of Mexican
troops from Texas. Bowie refused to accept the authority of Travis, but by the time the Mexicans
returned under Santa Anna he had been stricken with typhus. He was bayoneted to death in the
sickbay, reportedly wielding his eponymous knife to the end.
•1830 A large group of Redbones settled on the west side of the Sabine River in what is today
Newton County, Texas. Some of the family names in that area were Adams, Bass, Bennett, Bond,
Brack, Brown, Clark, Coleman, Cole, Collins, Davis, Droddy, Hall, Harper, Hart, James,
Johnson, Knight, Lee, Lewis, Martin, Mattox, Moore, Nash, Page, Parker, Perkins, Powell, Smith,
Stringer, Taylor, Thompson, Weeks, West, White, Willis, Williams, Woods, Wright, and Young.
•April 1830--Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico
forbid further emigration into Texas by settlers from the United States.
•1831 William Ashworth had emigrated from Louisiana and many friends and relatives Redbone
familis followed him. The Ashworths immigrated to Louisiana from South Carolina in 1799.
During the Revolution against Mexico, William and Abner Ashworth paid Gipson Perkins and
Elijah Thomas to take their places in the Texas Army. The Ashworths were classified as "free
blacks" and were land and slave owners.
•1832 William Goyens married Mary Pate Sibley, the daughter-in-law, of DR Sibley. Mary
Pate Sibley Goyens had one son, Henry Sibley , however Will iam and Mary Goyens had no
children.
•26 June 1832--The Battle ofVelasco resulted in the first casualties in Texas' relations
with Mexico. After several days of fighting, the Mexicans under Domingo de
Ugartechea were forced to surrender for lack of ammunition.
•1834 The heirs of Nancy Johnson Gowans widow of Thomas D Goyens, a slave owning
family receives one league & labor, 26,000,000 square acres in the County of Liberty about
seven miles from Trinity River boarder by the Wm Hardin survey.
•
Emily D. West, a mulatto, is reported to have greatly influenced the battle of San Jacinto,
which resulted in a victory for the Texians and ultimately freedom from Mexican rule, by
entertaining General Santa Anna in his tent at the hour of attack. There is a legend that the
“Yellow Rose of Texas” is one Emily West, a mulatto, possibly originally from Bermuda. While
the song’s writer is unknown, we do know that the song appeared in the mid-1830’s, and the
writer may have been Negro, a solider, and from Tennessee.
There's a yellow rose in Texas, that I am going to see,
No other darky knows her, no darky only me
She cryed so when I left her it like to broke my heart,
And if I ever find her, we nevermore will part.
She's the sweetest rose of color this darky ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your dearest May, and sing of Rosa Lee,
But theYellow Rose of Texas beats the belles of Tennessee.
Later in the1850’s and after, the song was performed by Negro Minstrels. Through the years,
the song was changed and during the latter part of the Civil War, it acquired a stanza about
Confederate General John B. Hood’s retreat from Nashville. Then came the unkindest cut of
all. Mitch Miller’s 1955 version so “whitewashed” our Yellow Rose that she appeared much
less than she was.

1834-1836 Ben Ashes son of Thomas Nash/Ash gives character certificate, General Land office
Texas. Ben gives permissions to allow white families to survey on “Coushatty” Land. The Ashworth
Family, William, Aaron, Jesse & Abner give various character certificate, General Land office Texas.
•
1835 Battle of Goliad George Collingsworth, Ben Milam, and forty-nine other Texans stormed
the presidio at Goliad and a small detachment of Mexican defenders.
•
6 March 1836 -- Texans under Col.William B.Travis were overwhelmed by the Mexican army
after a two-week siege at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio. Daniel William Cloud, a
Redbone progenitor was killed.
•
February 23, 1836 William Goyens helped to negotiate the Forbes-Houston Treaty insuring
Cherokee neutrality in the War. Later, The Texas Senate rejected the treaty with the Cherokees
which initiated the Cherokee War of 1839. Chief Big Mush and Chief Bowls died on July 16, 1839
and the Cherokee people were forced to abandon their lands.

March 4, 1836, Capt. Benjamin Harper raised a company of 28 men at Beaumont and started
westward. Upon reaching Liberty, his company was merged with those of Capt. William Logan and
Capt. Franklin Hardin. Most of this company were from Liberty County, but the remainder were
from Jefferson and Orange Counties, as follows: from Beaumont, Benjamin Harper, Ephraim
Bollinger, Peter Bollinger, David McFaddin, M. J. Brake, and Hezekiah R. Williams; from Pine
Island settlement, Lefroy Guidry, David Choate, Stephen Jackson, Lovic P. Dyches, and Michael
Peveto, Jr.; from Taylor's Bayou, William Smith; and from from Old Jefferson, David Cole and
James Cole. All of these men later fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.
When the Battle of San Jacinto ended, there were still large Mexican armies stationed in Texas, and
these had to be escorted back to the Rio Grande River at the very moment that many men from
the 90-day militia companies were due to be discharged. When Captain Logan's company
disbanded, Capts. Harper and Hardin re-enlisted most of them in new 90-day companies needed
to go to the Mexican border. Among Harper's enlistees from Jefferson and Orange Counties were
George Allen, E. Bollinger, W. H. Irion, James McFaddin, C. Bollinger, Moses Allen, David Scott,
John Clark, Gilbert Stephenson, Clark Beach, Absalom Jett, John Allen, Aaron and William
Ashworth, and John Turner
•1840 The largest Indian fight in Texas history was the Linnville Raid culminating at the battle at
Plum Creek. Among the people fighting in that battle were: Owen, Archibald Gipson, Watts,
James Bird, Hall, Nichols and Joseph Wood.
The Ashworth Act, passed by the Texas Congress on December 12, 1840, came in response to an
act passed on February 5, 1840, which prohibited the immigration of free blacks and ordered all
free black residents to vacate the Republic of Texas within two years or be sold into slavery. The
earlier act was designed to make color the standard mark of servitude in Texas by eliminating the
free black population. It repealed all laws contrary to its provisions and nullified the act of June
5, 1837, which permitted the residence of free blacks living in Texas before the Texas Declaration
of Independence. On November 9, 1840, the Hardin and Richardson petitions were referred to
the Committee on the State of the Republic. A bill exempting Samuel McCulloch, Jr.,qv and
some of his relatives passed its first reading the same day.
On November 10, 1840, the Ashworth bill passed the House, and the McCulloch bill was read
a second time. At this reading attempts were made to amend the bill by adding the names of
William Goyens,qv who was supported by Thomas J. Rusk,qv and two other parties. The
amendments lost, but the original bill passed.
•1842 -- San Antonio was again captured, this time by 1400 Mexican troops under
Adrian Woll. Again the Mexicans retreated, but this time with prisoners.
•1840 Joshua and Jennie Goins Perkins with son Jesse Perkins took their families westward
into Texas.
•1846 Benjamin Nash signed The Old Cherokee Settlers Treaty. The Treaty Party was made up
of the Eastern Cherokee living in the west, and the North Carolina Cherokee most being of
mixed-blood families, generally of one-quarter blood or less who did not remove during final
removals.
•1850 Leonard Covington Sweat after the bloody Rawhide Fight in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, a
fugitive of the law for murder he fled to Texas. His family soon followed. The fight occurred at
the schoolhouse on Burton Creek in the Walnut Hill area, at James Groves' trading post.
Known as Glass Window Trading Post so named because the building held the only known
windows in the area. The trading post was established by James Groves , a wealthy white man
and son-in-law Redbone progenitor, Thomas Nash. Some time after the fight James Nash son
of Thomas Nash/Ash died of knife wound as reported by his wife Mary “Polly” Perkins Nash.
His family soon followed , Perkins settled in Piney Woods.
•1850 Stephen Nash settled with his Uncle Bejamin Nash/Ash at No Zulch , Madison County
where they continued to trade by way of the Old El Camino Real which split and continued
south into San Antonia or “The Old San Antonio Road” and north to Nacogdoches.
•1854 Samuel Gowan enlisted under PH Rogers as private with the Texas Rangers.
•1856 Orange County, Wars . Orange (once part of Madiason Co) had the largest aggregate of
"free blacks" in the state, numbering about 100. The nucleus of the Mulatto colony included
Aaron, Abner, William, Jesse, and Tapler Ashworth and their children; Hiram Bunch, Gibson
Perkins, and Elijah Thomas, all of whom were either brothers, in-laws, or were otherwise closely
related Redbone families. The wives of some of them were white, whereas a few white men in
the county had Mulatto wives (mixed marriage was illegal, although seldom enforced). Most of
them having arrived in Texas by 1834, a few of them held Mexican land grants.
Frederick Law Olmsted,
A Journey through Texas ( New York, 1857).
•A characteristic of vigilantism often is that it is hard to tell the vigilantes from the
desperadoes. So it was in the "guerrilla of skirmishes and murders" that developed in east
Texas in the 1850's. An issue of racism was present, there was feudlike involvement of entire
families, and the victims included not only the sheriff and deputy sheriff, but a couple of
strangers caught in the cross-fire. Guerrilla, feud, battle--it was also vigilantism. The account
that follows is by a noted traveler and reporter on Texas and the antebellum South.
•This county has been lately the scene of events, which prove that it must have contained a
much larger number of free negroes and persons of mixed blood than we were informed on
the spot, in spite of the very severe statute forbidding their introduction, which has been
backed by additional legislative penalties in 1856. Banded together, they have been able to
resist the power, not only of the legal authorities, but of a local "Vigilance Committee,"
which gave them a certain number of hours to leave the State, and a guerrilla of skirmishes
and murders has been carried on for many months, up the banks of the Sabine, with the
revival of the old names of "Moderators and Regulators" of the early Texans.
•Upon this the Vigilance Committee was organized, and the sheriff, who was suspected of
connivance at the escape of Ashworth, and all of the Ashworth family with their relatives and
supporters, summoned to leave the county on pain of death. On the other hand, all free men
of color on the border, to the number of one hundred and fifty, or more, joined with a few
whites and Spaniards, formed an organized band, and defied the Committee, and then ensued
a series of assassinations, burnings of houses and saw-mills, and open fights. The Moderators,
or Committee-men, became strong enough to range the county, and demand that every man,
capable of bearing arms, should join them, or quit the county on pain of death. This increased
the resistance and the bloody retaliation, and, at the last accounts they were laying regular
siege to the house of a family who had refused to join them. The feud appears to have
commenced with the condemnation, by a justice of the peace, of a free mulatto, named
Samuel Ashworth, to receive twenty-five lashes, on a charge of malicious killing of his
neighbor's hogs, and of impertinent talking.
•Thirty families had been compelled to leave the county, and murders were still occurring
every week. Among those killed were two strangers, traveling through the county; also the
deputy sheriff, and the sheriff himself, who was found concealed under the floor of a lonely
house, with a quantity of machinery for the issue of false money, and immediately shot; the
proprietor of the house, defending himself, revolver in hand, fell pierced with many balls. The
aid of the military power of the State had been invoked by the legal authorities, but the issue I
had not seen in the newspapers.
•1857 James Goyen enlisted San Saba
under JH Conner as Mounted men with
the Texas Rangers.
•1857 Raborn Goyens & Seaborn
Goyens enlist as under WR Woods as
Mounted men with the Texas Rangers.
Both son’s of progenitor Redbone
family, Jeremiah & Sarophina Drake
Goins.
•1860 Raborn Goyens & John N Goyens
enlist under WR Wood as Minute men
with the Texas Rangers.
Redbone Families continued to migrate to Texas. The Mayo wagon train was a late migration of
Redbone families from Holmes Co., FL to Rapides, LA. They set out on their journey late in
the year of 1857 or early 1858 to Rapides Parish, La. Then into East TX. A large number of
families left the Choctawhatchee River area of northwest Florida and journeyed west . These
families, often described as "mixed-bloods" joined an older settlement of Reverend Joseph
Willis, Goins, Perkins, Nash and Sweat families to produce what is known today as the "Red
Bone" community. Many joined other family members in East Texas. Some of the families
moving back and forth between La and Tx so often they are enumerated in both locations in the
same census year.
As late as 1896 some Redbone families join family members among the Cherokee
who had been removed to Oklahoma with final removals…still others made
application to be counted on the final rolls but they choose to remain in Texas and
forfeiture of all head right they might received. Their mysterious and complicated
heritage lives on in the modern day Redbone descendants.