Cherokee Chief Bowles

Duwali (Chief Bowl) died on the second day of a two-day fight. The Handbook of Texas says President Lamar had called for an "exterminating war." Texas troops under Rusk and Burleson attacked the Cherokees and their Kickapoo, Delaware and Shawnee allies at dusk on July 15, 1839, indecisively. On July 16, on the Neches headwaters in present Van Zandt County, they overran them. Bowl's horse was wounded, he was shot through the thigh, and a Texan soldier shot him in the head as he sat wounded. Most survivors fled to Indian Territory. The marker is on private property.

What the plaque says

Cherokee Chief Bowles On this site the Cherokee Chief Bowles was killed on July 16, 1839 while leading 800 Indians of various tribes in battle against 500 Texans * * The last engagement between Cherokees and whites in Texas. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 12 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 13 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 14 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Tyler State Park — 14 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Edom — 6.4 mi
• John Crane — 7.3 mi
• Cherokee Exodus from Texas — 7.3 mi
• Yarborough Home — 7.3 mi