No Man's Land Pioneers

Book excerpt: No Man's Land is the ancestral and cultural region of the Four Winds Tribe - Louisiana Cherokee. This enigmatic group exists largely because of the history of the region. Other mavericks came into the region, without the auspices of any government. These nonconformists give an interesting story about the settlement of the country and particularly the first settlers of the westward expansion, well before Lewis and Clark trekked up the Missouri. The first settlers were predominantly Native Americans from the Carolinas.President Thomas Jefferson, without approval of Congress, had his emissaries negotiate for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 Million in 1803. However, the boundaries of the territories were not well defined.A disagreement over the western boundary of the Purchase arose between the new U.S. Louisiana and the Spanish Texas. Spain claimed their eastern boundary was from Arroyo Hondo at Natchitoches, now Louisiana south to the Calcasieu River and on to the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. facetiously claimed to the Rio Grande River, but realistically claimed to the Sabine River.This is the stories of those intrepid spirits who made the trek, settled the wild country, and created a unique American Indian - English culture within a French - Spanish territory without any government.