Memucan Hunt to John Forsyth, July 18, 1837
Summary: Hunt outlined several grievances Texas wished to address to the United States. Texas wanted the U.S. to stop an upcoming smuggling of slaves from Cuba into Texas, which violated a Texas law. Hunt also told Forsyth about continuing Indian attacks on the borders and requested assistance in stopping the raids and any trade with Indians that encouraged such attacks.
TEXIAN LEGATION, WASHINGTON
July 18th, 1837.
SIR,
I am instructed by the Government of Texas to inform you that they have lately received intelligence of certain arrangements having been made for the purpose of purchasing negroes, recently imported from Africa into the island of Cuba with the view of introducing them within the limits of Texas.
Their plan is to evade the law, which was passed by the Texian Congress last winter, making it piracy to introduce slaves from any other country than the United States, by landing them on this side of the Sabine and transporting them across that river into Texas.
It is the ardent desire of my government, not only to preclude all suspicion of connivance in this traffic, but also to lend their most efficient aid in putting it down. The condition of our navy, however, at present, is not such as would justify its being diverted from the immediate protection of the Coast. I have, therefore, the honor to request in obedience to my instructions, that the Government of the United States will adopt such measures as will defeat the arrangements above alluded to, and thus aid in giving efficacy to a law, which was enacted in accordance with the enlightened spirit of the age and the established policy of the United States.
I have also the honor to inform you, that certain Indians from the United States are still committing their depredations upon the citizens of our eastern frontier, and again I would urge the terms of the existing treaties, relative to the control of the Indian tribes in that quarter.
I am instructed to complain of a trading establishment on the Red River, owned or superintended by a Mr. Coffee, who, it is said, has been engaged in the reprehensible practice of encouraging the Indians in their predatory incursions, by purchasing horses and mules and such other property as they can manage to carry off from our citizens;--a practice, so outrageous in itself, and so dangerous to the peace of that frontier, that I earnestly hope that the Government of the United States, if they should not deem it expedient to restrict the privileges of such establishments to peltries alone, will lay an express prohibition upon their trade with all those tribes of Indians, (except so far as relates to peltries) which have been in the habit of committing these depredations, whether residing within the limits of Texas or under the jurisdiction of the United states.
I have the honor to renew to you the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.
(signed) MEMUCAN HUNT.
Honorable John Forsyth.
Secretary of State of the United States.
Source Copy Consulted: Memucan Hunt to John Forsyth, July 18, 1837, in George Garrison, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1908, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911), 3 vols., 2:248