How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [86]
Oolooteka, now located in Arkansas, welcomed his prodigal son—though this prodigal son, as the astute chief knew, was closely connected to the new president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Initially, Chief Oolooteka sent Houston on local missions to mediate intertribal disputes. Other relationships also occupied Houston’s time—one in particular with a Cherokee widow named Diana Rogers Gentry. They soon married. How officially they were married depends on one’s cultural customs, but among the Cherokees and in their own hearts, they were wed. Houston’s relationship with the tribe also deepened as he formally became a full-fledged Cherokee.
Chief Oolooteka then sent Houston to Washington as part of a delegation working out details resulting from the Treaty with the Western Cherokee Nation of 1828. Houston was again in Cherokee garb, this time in the presence of the president. Old Hickory reacted with a grin and an embrace.
Houston’s appearance in Washington as a Cherokee fooled no one—with the possible exception of Houston. His plans at this point were a mystery, perhaps even to himself. Speculation was rampant. Friends in Tennessee began setting the table for his return to elective office. Foes in Tennessee pulled the tablecloth off. In May 1830 the Nashville Banner reported:
At a meeting of sundry respectable citizens … it was resolved that a committee draw up a report expressive of the opinions entertained of the private virtue of Mrs. Eliza Houston, and whether her amiable character has received an injury among those acquainted with her in consequence of the late unfortunate occurrence between her and her husband, Gen. Samuel Houston.… It has been suggested that … a belief has obtained in many places that he was married to an unworthy woman and that she has been the cause of all his misfortunes and his downfall as a man and a politician. Nothing is further from the fact.… The committee has no hesitation in saying that he is a deluded man; and his suspicions were groundless.
Tennessee was not Houston’s only option. He had also been approached by friends in Texas, where the Anglo population had grown to the point that there was talk of separation from Mexico. Here too his enemies sought to undermine him, reporting that Houston planned to exploit rebellion in Texas by taking its helm. President Jackson wrote to his unpredictable protégé, laughing off the rumor “that you had declared you would, in less than two years, be emperor of that country by conquest.” Jackson then mentioned that the military would suppress any such effort.5
Houston responded to these efforts to confine him by placing an ad in the Nashville Banner. Knowing that the press loved every aspect of his public and private controversies, Houston was assured his ad would soon appear as a news story nationwide. Worded as it was, it did:
Now know all men by these presents, that I, Sam Houston, “late governor of the State of Tennessee,” do hereby declare to all scoundrels whomsoever, that they are authorized to accuse, defame, calumniate, traduce, slander, or vilify and libel me, to any extent in personal or private abuse.… Be it known … I do solemnly promise on the first day of April next, to give to the author of the most elegant, refined, ingenious lie or calumny, a handsome gilt copy (bound in sheep) of the Kentucky Reporter, or a snug plain copy of the United States Telegraph (bound in dog).6
Houston’s humor concealed the dynamite around which it was wrapped. By detonating ridicule beneath the feet of his detractors, Houston obtained time to make a move. That move was to Texas, ostensibly