Texas President Lamar favors the eradication of…

Texas President Lamar favors the eradication of natives in the republic—a view that he shares with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Thomas Rusk.

Lamar sees in the Rangers the perfect tool for the task, and he obtains permission from the Texas Legislature to raise a force of fifty-six Rangers, along with other volunteer companies.

During the following three years, he is to engage the Rangers in a war against the Cherokee and the Comanche and succeed in weakening their territorial control.

Sam Houston, serving as a representative in the Texas House of Representatives for San Augustine, is a major critic of President Lamar, who advocates continuing independence of Texas and its extension to the Pacific Ocean.

During the Texas Revolution, the Texas Rangers had served mainly as scouts, spies, couriers, and guides for the settlers fleeing before the Mexican Army and performed rear guard during the Runaway Scrape and general support duties.

These minor roles had continued after independence.

Houston, who had lived with the Cherokee for many years (and who had taken a Cherokee wife), favors peaceful coexistence with natives, a policy that had left little space for a force with the Rangers' characteristics.

This situation had changed radically when Lamar became president.

Lamar had participated in skirmishes with the Cherokee in his home state of Georgia; like most Texans, he has not forgotten the support the Cherokee had given the Mexicans at the Cordova Rebellion against the Republic.