At age 16, after his father died,
Sam Houston ran off to live with the Cherokee Indians on the Tennessee River.
He was adopted by Chief Oolooteka and given the name
"Raven." Three years later,
Houston returned to Knox County, Tennessee, and opened a one-room schoolhouse, the first school built in the State.
He joined the army and fought in the War of 1812.
During the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Sam
Houston was shot with an arrow in the upper thigh, which was removed and he kept fighting.
The Red Stick Creek Indians then struck him with bullets in the shoulder and arm.
He was noticed by General Andrew Jackson, who mentored him.
In 1818, wearing Indian dress,
Sam Houston led a delegation of Cherokee to Washington, D.C., to meet with President James Monroe.
He studied law under Judge James Trimble, passed the bar, and opened up a legal practice in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Houston was appointed the local prosecutor and was given a command in the state militia.
Sam Houston was elected to Congress in 1823, and became Governor of Tennessee in 1827.
After a failed marriage,
Sam Houston resigned and moved to the Arkansas Territory where he lived among the Cherokee Tribe.
At this time,
Houston was interviewed by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who was traveling through the United States.
While visiting Washington, DC, a politician slandered his character resulting in an altercation and trial.
Francis Scott Key was
Houston's lawyer, and future President James K. Polk interceded for him, but nevertheless, Houston was fined $500.
Rather than pay,
Houston left for the Mexican Territory of Tejas in 1832.
He had married a Cherokee wife, but she refused to follow him to Tejas.
In 1833, in Nacogdoches, Texas,
Sam Houston was baptized into the Catholic faith, a requirement to own property in the Mexican Territory.
After
his Cherokee wife died, Sam Houston married again in 1847. In 1854, his
new wife convinced him to be baptized as a Baptist in Little Rocky
Creek.
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