Land History
What is the history of the land that today is Cherrywood?
When Europeans first came to this part of the world in the sixteenth century (first Spanish, then French), groups of indigenous people inhabited the land around what is today Austin. They moved about the area in temporary, seasonal settlements, following game (mostly deer). The introduction of European colonization caused these people to coalesce into a single group known as the Tonkawa.
European colonization and settlement of eastern North America caused large-scale movements of indigenous people across the continent. In the eighteenth century, several groups of buffalo hunting people from the plains, Comanches and Lipan Apaches, pushed into central Texas and encroached on the Tonkawa homeland. The three groups contested the hunting grounds around the upper Colorado into the early nineteenth century.
When Anglo-Texan settlement began extending up the Colorado in the 1830s (during Lamar’s term as President of the Republic), clashes between settlers and indigenous people in the area increased dramatically, as did outbreaks of disease among the Indians, including smallpox and cholera. Lamar’s aggressive policy towards native people in Texas was expressed as “expulsion or extermination”.
Warfare among indigenous groups, violence perpetrated by Texans (especially by the Rangers), and disease caused intermittent population decline and shifting territorial claims (there was a lot of movement in the area at this time). During the course of a bloody nineteenth century, the Tonkawa, Comanche, and Lipan Apache people were decimated, and by the end of the century what remained of the three groups had been forcibly displaced. The Tonkawa and Comanche were “removed” to what is today Oklahoma, where some descendants still live, and the Lipan Apaches were chased into New Mexico and Mexico. During the twentieth century some Lipan Apache filtered back into Texas and are now a state-recognized Tribe.
The displacement of the Tonkawa, Comanche and Lipan Apache people opened the area for more settlement, and European-descended settlers acquired title to the land in and around Austin that became Cherrywood from the Republic and later the State of Texas. By the end of the nineteenth century, the area was claimed by around a dozen owners. A map recorded by the County Clerk in 1884 shows the part of our neighborhood south of 38-1/2 St occupied by lots owned by J.G. Swisher, Thomas G. Abell, Addie Robinson, Lucy A Dancy, Mrs. Mary O Dinkins, Annie E. Lesseuer, T. McKean, D. N. Robinson, R. H. Hanna, and the Mount Calvary Cemetery.
In 1887, Lucy Dancy’s lot was subdivided into what is known as the Dancy Addition, which appears to be the first modern development of the neighborhood. The roughly nine square blocks ran from East Avenue to Drury Lane and included Pond St (today’s Robinson), Poydras St. (today’s Dancy), Carnatz St. (today’s 28th), Dancy St. (today’s 29th), and Robinson (today’s 28th). Most of the rest of Cherrywood was subdivided in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. The process of subdivision is the method of breaking up a large piece of land into legally recognized parcels that can be sold individually.
Thus, through the processes of expulsion, land grants and sale by the Republic and the State of Texas, subsequent re-sales of those lands, and subdivision into modern, urban lots, land that was once the homeland of the Tonkawa became the property and residences of today’s Cherrywooders. Through acknowledging this history, we gain a better understanding of how the lots, streets, and parks of Cherrywood came to be available to us today. Can doing so change our future choices?
Bibliography
The Texas Indians by David La Vere
The Conquest of Texas by Gary Clayton Anderson
The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen
Tribal websites