Anglo (meaning non-Hispanic white) migration to Texas began in earnest after Mexico secured its independence from Spain in 1821. In the new republic, Texas was just one part of the state of Coahuila-Texas, a region in Mexico's northern borderlands in which Native communities were powerful. Mexican families lived throughout the northern portion of Coahuila-Texas—the wealthiest of whom were known as Tejanos—and to the Comanche and Lipan Apache they were unwelcome. Viewed from the perspective of the region's Native communities, both Tejano and Anglo settlers were undocumented immigrants.

Many of the first Anglo immigrants to Texas were squatters, individuals who had no Mexican legal claim to their land. By 1824, however, both Mexican and Tejano officials welcomed Anglo settlers, although for very different reasons. The Mexican government wanted assistance securing the country's northern border against raids by the Comanche and other Native groups; the Tejanos wanted help in raising Texas to the level of Mexican statehood, independent of Coahuila, so that they might govern themselves more effectively. Anglo settlers wanted land, and they were initially willing to accept multiple conditions on their immigration in order to get it. In 1825, Mexico passed the Coahuila-Texas colonization law, which offered men at the head of households 177 acres of farming land, grazing rights, and tax breaks in order to settle the region. In return, settlers had to agree to become Mexican citizens, to practice Catholicism, and to uphold all Mexican laws, including those that prohibited slavery.

The vision of colonization held by Mexican officials was soon upended. By the mid 1820s there were more Anglo settlers in Texas than Tejanos, and Anglo families refused to settle where Mexican officials preferred them to go. Instead, they clustered around the state's eastern borders, which made the Mexican government nervous—it appeared that the United States' borders were encroaching into Mexican territory by default.

The Mexican government had good reason to worry. Not only were Anglos more culturally and politically allied with the United States than Mexico—especially on the subject of slavery—but Tejanos initially allied themselves with leading American settlers like Stephen Austin, believing this would position them to gain sovereignty. Mexico's worries were further compounded by the United States offering $1 million for Texas in 1827, and $5 million in 1829. On both occasions, Mexico declined.

By 1832, more than 6,000 Anglo settlers, who owned more than 1,000 slaves, lived in Texas. This compared with 3,000 Tejanos. Some relationships between Tejano families and Anglos became strained when settlers refused to recognize Tejano land rights and forced families from their farms. Many wealthy Tejanos still felt their interests were best served by alliance with Anglo leaders, however, and it was their cooperation that helped make Texan independence possible in 1835. Tejanos fought alongside Anglos in the ensuing war with Mexico, but in the face of a wave of new immigration after Texas declared itself independent of any larger nation, their political and cultural influence in the region declined. Most new Anglo settlers believed that their culture was superior to that of Tejanos and Mexicans alike, and racial prejudice was rife.

The Mexican government never recognized Texas as an independent state. When the United States annexed Texas in 1845 Mexico once again went to war. After three years, the peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo saw the transfer of millions of acres of Mexican territory to the United States government—modern-day Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, as well as portions of states further north. Anglo settlement, which had once seemed a sound strategic defense against borderland warfare with Indian people, proved the thin edge of a wedge that saw Mexico lose more than half of its territory to the United States.

The Comanche and Lipan Apache continued to defend their territory against immigrants for many more years.

The “Trail of Tears” refers specifically to Cherokee removal in the first half of the 19th century, when about 16,000 Cherokees were forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. It is estimated that of the approximately 16,000 Cherokee who were removed between 1836 and 1839, about 4,000 perished.

At the time of first contacts with Europeans, Cherokee Territory extended from the Ohio River south into east Tennessee. The Cherokee enjoyed profitable commercial and diplomatic relations with the British, although Anglo-American settlers caused conflicts by encroaching on Cherokee lands. After the American Revolution, the U.S. implemented a policy of “civilization” toward the Cherokee and other American Indian nations living within U.S. borders. They urged Native Americans to abandon their own cultures and traditions and adopt Christianity and other Anglo-American ways, such as western habits of dress and farming. Some Cherokee embraced this plan in order to maintain control over their economy and political sovereignty. These changes altered gender roles significantly, as men took on traditionally female tasks of farming and adopted patrilineal practices of private property ownership. A few Cherokees acquired large tracts of land, became planters, and purchased slaves. Eventually the Cherokee nation modeled its own Constitution after the U.S. frame of government.

Despite these signs that the Cherokee were assimilating, whites in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee insisted that their state governments remove them. In 1828 the Georgia legislature annexed Cherokee territory. The Cherokee resisted, using American courts to argue that they were a sovereign nation. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), but Georgians and President Andrew Jackson ignored the Court’s decision. Acting under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. government pressed the Cherokees to migrate west. An unauthorized Cherokee faction signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which exchanged Cherokee lands in the east for land in Indian Territory and money to help them with relocation.

Most Cherokees refused to move, and in May of 1838 federal troops began to round up the Cherokees and imprison them in stockades to await removal. Many died in the stockades as they waited. U.S. soldiers then accompanied the Cherokees as they traveled 1,200 miles westward. Most made the journey on foot. Rebecca Neugin, who was a child when she and her family were forced to remove, stated that although she and her smaller siblings were able to ride in a wagon, her mother, father, and older brother walked all the way. “There was much sickness among the emigrants,” she recalled, “and a great many little children died of whooping cough.” After they arrived in Indian Territory more Cherokees succumbed to famine and disease, bringing the estimated death toll to 4,000.

The Cherokee nation was not the only Native American culture to be removed westward in the 19th century. Perhaps as many as 100,000 First Peoples were pushed out of their traditional lands, and the death toll from these forced removals reached far into the thousands.

In November 1873, Little Wolf was among a delegation of Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho leaders who traveled to Washington to meet with President Grant. At issue for both sides was the continued tenure of Cheyenne and Arapaho communities on their ancestral territory in the northern Plains.

In May 1868, the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho signed a treaty with the United States government. (The treaty was ratified in July and proclaimed in August.) In that treaty the Cheyenne and Arapaho agreed to accept "for their permanent home" land amid the Southern Arapaho or the Brule band of the Lakota nation. The Cheyenne and Arapaho nevertheless retained the right to hunt over their ancestral homelands "while game shall be found in sufficient quantities to justify the chase." The United States government, for its part, agreed to supply the communities with teachers, farmers, carpenters, clothing, and small annuities. Any Cheyenne or Arapaho "head of a family"—an adult, married man by Euro-American standards of the day—would receive 320 acres of land as well as seeds and agricultural supplies if he promised to become a farmer. The treaty also included language giving the United States government jurisdiction over all crimes committed by or toward Indian people. (1)

Despite the treaty, most Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho did not want to become farmers and were content to live life as they always had. Neither did the Southern Arapaho or Lakota bands abandon their traditional practices and accede to reservation life, much less welcome the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho into their midst. The 1868 treaty protected the Northern communities in their right to continue hunting—but as white settlers pushed into the Northern Plains, conflict escalated between those emigrants and the Native communities who lived there. Armed conflict ensued, but while the U.S. military poured men and resources into the region, the nations of the Northern Plains were able defenders of their territory.

It was in this context that the leaders of the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho journeyed to Washington in 1873. At first, the Secretary of the Interior tried to negotiate with the delegation, but the Washington Evening Star reported that the Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders "said they had come a long way to see the Great Father and to talk with him about these things and they did not propose to talk much with the Great Father's subordinate." (2) On meeting Grant himself, members of the delegation conceded that it seemed that white settlers would continue to encroach on their territory, but did not concede that the solution was for them to relocate. On returning to the Northern Plains the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho continued to actively resist white encroachment on their land.

Despite the premise of a recent novel about this meeting between Grant and the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, there is no evidence that Little Wolf asked the president for one thousand white women when they met. This action would also make little sense in the context of life on the Northern Plains, and the Cheyenne's continued claim to their territory and traditional ways of life.