Cherokee warrior

Tomahawk, pipe & feather

Note that the composition of USNS-CHN-C 001A was previously erroneously identified as brass. This coin is in fact made of .925 silver, although most extant examples are heavily tarnished, and have an appearance that can be easily mistaken for brass.

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 two coins shown above, and these remain its chief historic legacy.

© 2005, USNS / G Cruickshank. Information and scans courtesy of C Shiboleth and G Cruickshank.