Williams Settlement at the Red River in old Miller County, Arkansas Territory
- Robin Cole-Jett
- 23 minutes ago
- 7 min read
In maps of the United States/Texas/North America between 1820 and 1825, I noticed a place along the Red River in former Miller County called Williams Settlement. This was in the former Indian Territory (now McCurtain County, Oklahoma) that was once the former Arkansas Territory (and was in the initial Miller County, Arkansas Territory) northwest of Pecan Point.
Sometimes, this place was also referred to as "Upper Settlements." Because I had the name "Williams" to associate with the word "settlement," I began a search that took me into the aftermath of a major earthquake.
The Initial Internet Search
I looked up "Williams Settlement" and "Pecan Point" on the trusty Google, now with feeble attempts at AI generated information. I found an entry in the Handbook of Texas that superficially linked Thomas Williams to Pecan Point but then, to a Williams Settlement along the Trammel Trace in Rusk County. AI pretended to recognize a "Williams Settlement" in Miller County of Arkansas Territory (1820 to 1838), but none of the referenced materials actually had verifiable information.
So I had to go to the primary sources: newspapers, territorial papers, congressional papers, and maps!
New Madrid Claims
In 1811 and 1812, major earthquakes at New Madrid along the Mississippi River, a former Spanish outpost turned growing American settlement, spurred US congress to pass the New Madrid Lands Act of 1815. Because those who owned land in the earthquake zone were deemed to be irreparably injured -- landslides, sand blows, sunken islands, and other catastrophic losses -- Congress granted new lands to those who could produce their original certificates. They traded their old certificates for new lands in either Illinois Territory or Missouri Territory.
For the benefit of Red River Historians, we're going to concentrate on the southern portion of Missouri Territory, which includes present-day southwestern Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma along the Red River.
HOWEVER!
There's always a "however" when it comes to lands in the United States, a country founded on land wealth and forged by land grabs and land thefts. So, this "however" comes as no great surprise: the "New Madrid Lands" that congress distributed in 1815 were already being claimed by others. Of course, there were the native people who lived there -- Caddos, Osages, and Pawnees (Panis) -- but because they had no written land records or had signed treaties waiving rights to claims, their claims to lands were specious or simply never honored.
Then, there were Anglo Americans from the mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas who had left their home states for either Spanish Louisiana or Louisiana Territory (depending on the year of their migration). These settlers were known as "pre-emptors." As was custom in pre-emption, their improvements on territorial i.e. public lands were supposed to eventually provide them with a filed land claim.
Pretend Pre-Emption
Most of the lands claimed by white immigrants to the Red River Valley of today's Southwestern Arkansas and Southeastern Oklahoma consisted of about 60 to 80 acres. Some had come to the Red River Valley under the assumption that they were obtaining land under the Spanish "empresario" system, because, in the period between the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, boundaries between the US and New Spain were very fluid.
Then, in 1814, congress passed the "Right of Preemption" law to encourage westward settlement in the Illinois Territory. That same year, Congress passed "Final Adjustment of Land Titles in the state of Louisiana and Territory of Missouri" to legitimize the Spanish land grants.
Anglos coming into the Missouri Territory, which in this period encompassed southern Arkansas and Oklahoma, pretended that these acts extended to them. After the 1814 laws, hundreds of people began populating the Red River Valley west of the Great Bend. In 1820, the territorial government of Arkansas named this area Miller County so as to establish law and order during this land rush.
HOWEVER!
Now the US was in a pickle. The 1815 New Madrid Act stood in direct conflict with Anglo migrant interpretation of the 1814 Pre-Emption Act; whether the settlers at Pecan Point and Williams' Settlement believed the 1814 Pre-Emption Act to have truly included southern Missouri Territory, or if they were just wanting to squat on the land, is still up for debate.
The 1815 claimants and the 1814 Pre-Emption squatters established the "upper settlements" as noted on the maps in this post. Stephen H. Long noted in his 1820 journal that these "upper settlements of Red river... are most commonly made by persons... who choose to depend upon the chase, and the spontaneous products do the unclaimed forest, rather than submit to the confinement and monotony of agricultural life." By 1818, "there were twenty families at the mouth of the Kiamichi and a dozen more a few miles below, at Pecan Point" (Reuben Gold Thwaites, editor, Part IV of James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820). In the Red River bottoms, most people didn't ever cultivate the land but instead, installed moonshine stills to sell illegal alcohol in the Indian settlements.
And speaking of Indian settlements: south of the Red River was Spanish/Mexican Texas. Unlike the US government, the Spanish government was not opposed to providing pre-emption to Native American settlers. Shawnees, who had become refugees after the Shawnee Wars of 1815, came into today's northern Texas to settle into communal villages within their own Spanish land grants. Delawares, Cherokees, Choctaws, Pawnees, and Caddos also sought to settle with Spanish land grants. But then the Anglos from the Mid-Atlantic arrived at the Red River.
Enemy People
The Anglos who appeared in the Red River Valley by 1815 had long memories. They were fresh from fighting the British/Indian alliances in the border wars along the Appalachian Piedmont and during the War of 1812 (1812 to 1815). They were losers in their respective state's land swaps within the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Choctaw nations. These were whites who were not the wealthy elite, but wanted to be: they purchased one or two people for enslavement, often on credit. They tried investment schemes that left them defrauded. People like Philip Nolan and Nicholas Trammel considered themselves "horse traders" and were gambling both in Mexican Texas and Missouri/Arkansas Territory.
These pre-emption settlements began to appear on both the north and south shores of the Red River to gauge political expediency: would the US or New Spain honor pre-emption claims? Which entity would charge the least amount of taxes? This is probably why Pecan Point was sometimes considered to exist in Mexican Texas and at other times, in Arkansas Territory. Schroedinger's settlement!
Settlers in southern Missouri Territory along the Red River petitioned for congress to acknowledge their pre-emptions via the 1814 and 1815 acts. A true land war was brewing, and congress, as it is wont to do, made matters worse.
The Choctaws and Fort Towson
By 1819, Congress established Cantonment Towson at the confluence of the Kiamichi and Red rivers, the farthest reach of westward migration in southwestern Arkansas. This fort was supposed to replace the Sulphur Fork Indian Factory (at the confluence of Sulphur and Red rivers) as a means of keeping peace and legitimate trade between pre-emptors and native people
Roughly at the same time, the federal Treaty of Doak's Stand took place with the Choctaws in 1820. This treaty traded Choctaw lands in Mississippi for western lands in Arkansas Territory. Now, new migrants joined the 1814 pre-emptors and the 1815 New Madrid claimants. And there were others: the Caddos (this was their original homeland, after all) and refugee Shawnees and Delawares. But the Choctaws didn't just join, they pre-empted. The Treaty of Doak's Stand, which recognized the Choctaws as a sovereign nation, granted exclusive use of the lands in the Red River Valley north of Texas and west of the Great Bend as theirs alone.
Woefully under-staffed and under-armed Fort Towson was now in charge of not only keeping the peace and overseeing legitimate trade, but also protecting the native people from the Anglo pre-emptors who were none-too-keen of suddenly having to vacate their lands for Indians. Added to this trouble were raids by Osages and Comanches against pretty much everyone because neither tribe validated anyone's claims.
Williams Settlement
Anglo pre-emptors petitioned Congress in 1821 for their land claim rights. But this was not done; the claimants had to vacate the land and their improvements for the Choctaws.
This decision resulted in Fort Towson and the Choctaw people experiencing violence from the pre-emptors, many of whom moved to the Texas side of the Red River to re-imagine Pecan Point as a Spanish pre-emption. Rumors of depredations by Choctaws were attempts at sparking conflict in this region. Letters to the Secretary of War by commanders of Fort Towson describe violent raids, murders, arson, thefts, and deceptions.
Thomas and Priscilla Williams, for whom the "Williams Settlement" on the Tanner map from 1825 is most likely named, removed to Pecan Point and eventually to today's Rusk County, Texas. There, they established another "Williams Settlement" along the Trammel Trace after participating in the Fredonian Rebellion of 1826 which, as usual, stemmed from pre-emption disputes.
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