Chapter 17

“OL’ GIRLS…..THAT’S MY MAN”!

By the age of 21, William H. Anderson, aka “Black Bill or Bill Lee” had escaped from the law in La Junta, Colorado and a jail in Old Mexico. Both times late at night. He was probably not guilty of the La Junta saloon/theater shooting and definitely innocent of breaking any Mexican laws.

                                                                                                                  Bill Anderson and friend Sam Miller 

After the Mexican jail escape, Bill returned to the Slaughter Ranch. The ranch was beginning to prosper with the cattle herds now safe from any danger of Geronimo Apache raids. Bill Lee and the other cowboys had made Slaughters spread immune from Geronimo. After Geronimo was captured, he was made prisoner at Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory. While there he was visited by Mrs. Nancy Tubert, the niece of John Slaughter. The exiled chief looked at her glumly and said that there were only two things he would like to do before he went to his heavenly hunting grounds (1) kill John Slaughter and (2) die in Arizona.

Sometime in the early 1890’s, Bill left Arizona and started working Texas ranches on his way back to La Junta, Colorado (his folks must have written him it was safe to come back home). On one of the cattle drives, he attended a square dance in Quanah, Texas. As he and his cowboy buddies walked into the dance hall, pretty Tommie Lee Boles, spotted him and immediately told her girlfriends “OL’GIRLS THAT’S MY MAN”. They danced most all of the evening. The following day Bill rode out to meet Tommie’s folks before departing for Colorado. Their daughter Noma wrote “they did not see each other for three years, but they corresponded regularly during their separation. By mail, they decided to meet and be married on April fools day, April 1, 1894 in Quanah, Texas

                                                                                                                 Marriage Certificate on April 1, 1894 

Black Bill’s bride, Tommie Lee Boles, was born in Van Zandt, Henderson County, Texas, on October 28, 1871. Her childhood home was the same location chosen by Chief John Bowles, for his Cherokee tribe, in the early 1800’s. The Chief and his followers had refused to participate in President Jackson’s infamous forced “trail of tears” march from the East Cherokee Nation( Carolinas and Georgia) to the Oklahoma Territory. Tommie’s father Levi Boles and grandfather William Boles,  followed the tribe from their home in Abbeville, South Carolina (East Cherokee Nation) to the village in Henderson County, Texas. It was probably the best-known Cherokee village ever established in Texas.

Chief Bowles was quite involved in early Texas history.   Texas was worried about a war with Mexico and they needed the Indians on their side. The Cherokees were not large in number, but they were experts with their rifles. General Sam Houston had a close and warm relationship with Chief Bowles. Houston negotiated a peace treaty with Bowles, after the signing he presented Chief Bowles with a sword, a silk vest and a sash.

Aunt Joy and Uncle Eddie Roberts in front of Chief Bowles and Sam Houston’s statue. The signing of the Texas Peace Treaty. Located in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Sadly, later Texas decided to break the treaty and send Chief Bowles and his villagers to Oklahoma, Territory.  They refused and Bowles was killed by Captain Smith.  “His horse shot out from under him, the Chief rose to his feet and as he started to walk away he was shot in the back. Bowles took a few steps and fell, then rose to a sitting position facing his captors, Captain Smith approached him and shoot the Chief in the head. He died on the field of battle and his people lost their Texas Paradise. He was wearing the sword and vest given to him by his “friend” Houston. Mary Whatley Clark has written about these incidents in her book titled CHIEF BOWLES AND THE TEXAS CHEROKEES.

Our family’s relationship to Chief Bowles was revealed when Tommie and her father Levi made application for Cherokee Citizenship with the Dawes Commission in 1896, case #4618. There were affidavits submitted with their application confirming their Cherokee blood.   One read “In the case by Levi C. Boles, age 64, he is a cousin to Johnson Boles, Lightening Bug Boles, Joe Boles and a distant relative of old Chief Boles”. Other confirming affidavits were given by Saike Splitnose and George Dreadful Water. It is my belief that our gg great grandfather, James Boles, born 1760, and Chief Bowles, born 1765, were brothers. They both said their father was a Scotch Irish trader and their mother a Cherokee. They traveled the same path after leaving South Carolina. Tommie Lee Boles always claimed she was Scotch, Irish, Indian.

Tommie and Levi’s Cherokee application to Dawes was rejected. To be approved by Dawes Commission, the party’s names had to appear on the East Cherokee Nation rolls.   Our Indian relations and many eastern Cherokees hid in the mountains, rather than signing the white mans rolls. Signing would be used by the government to identify the Indians and later force them to move from their eastern Cherokee hunting grounds, to Oklahoma Territory. We believe the choice of Chief John Boles and his tribe, was not to sign. Research has found several early name spellings… Boles, Bowles, Boll, and Bowl.

According to our Aunt Noma’s letters about her mother Tommie, “their home in the Henderson County, was a “dugout”. When Tommie as 4 years old, her mother, Nancy Gore Boles, died giving birth to her son Jetti L. Boles. Tommie’s sister, Ellen, age 12, took over the raising and cooking for her siblings…. John W., James R., Tommie Lee, and Jetti. (Nancy Gore was related to the blind Oklahoma Senator Gore).

We do not have much information about Tommie’s early life. She was only able to go to school until the forth grade, which was typical for those times. When she could no longer attend school, she got a dictionary to teach herself how to spell and write (she had a beautiful handwriting). She and her family moved from Chandler, Henderson County, to Quanah and eventually Bowie, Texas. Like Black Bill’s family, all the Boles moves were made to northwest Texas, by covered wagon.   Fortunately the trails led to a square dance in Quanah, Texas

                                                                         CHEROKEE LOGIC

After listening to biblical passages read in Cherokee, Chief Drowning Bear said, “It seems a good book but it is strange that the white man who has heard it so long is no better”.