Cherokee warrior

Tomahawk, pipe & feather

Cherokee warrior

Tomahawk, pipe & feather

Cherokee warrior

Tomahawk, pipe & feather

Cherokee warrior

Tomahawk, pipe & feather

As a result of Hurricane Beulah, which struck the southwestern US in 1967, a 400 acre island was created in the Rio Grande when a connecting strip of land on the Texas side of the border was washed away. Because the newly-formed island was south of the main river channel the US government decided that Mexico was its rightful owner, however the Mexican government disputed this.

On the grounds that the Mexican Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the Plan of Iguala gave the Cherokee people the right to establish a nation, Colonel Herbert M Williams of Brownsville, a fifth generation Texan of 1/4 Cherokee descent, subsequently purchased the island from Mexican owners for $400,000. He secured a legal title in 1974, aided by an obscure Mexican law which automatically makes any Indian owner of border territories a Mexican citizen.

According to a 25 December, 1978, article in Time magazine, the wealthy Mr Williams had plans for a casino, a TV station, tax-free companies, Swiss-style bank accounts, and the registration of ships. Williams' Cherokee Nation is known to have issued the four coins shown above, which were produced by a mint in Germany. They remain its chief historic legacy.

© 2005-06, USNS / G Cruickshank.
Information and scans courtesy of C Shiboleth, E Moschetti and G Cruickshank.