NEW: In Texas, a group claiming to be Cherokee faces questions about authenticity. Published in partnership with TexasObserver.
GRAPEVINE, Texas — On the blistering September day that ended Grapefest, a wine festival in Grapevine, outside Dallas, Mayor William Tate pushed up the brim of his cowboy hat and addressed the crowd gathered for the unveiling of a new public work of art:“It is important that history be accurate,” Tate said of the 11 bronze statues made to commemorate the brokering of peace in 1843 among 10 Native American leaders and Sam Houston, the president of the Republic of Texas.
Cherokee researchers say the purported leader of Mount Tabor who signed the 1843 treaty, identified in the Peace Circle sculpture as Devereaux Jarrett “Chicken Trotter” Bell, is actually two separate people: Bell, a well-documented figure in Cherokee history who isn’t known to have lived in Texas, and Chicken Trotter, a Cherokee man of whom little is known beyond his signature on the treaty.
Cherokee officials say there is no evidence to suggest that the Cherokees who lived in the Republic of Texas in the mid-1800s ever formed a tribal government — which would be necessary to demonstrate as part of any claim Mount Tabor could make to tribal status today. “We feel like we’ve already met the criteria and we just need to get the United States to acknowledge that,” Giordano said.
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