Texas Cherokees were the small settlements of Cherokee people who lived temporarily in what is now Texas, after being forcibly relocated from their homelands, primarily during the time that Spain, and then Mexico, controlled the territory. After the Cherokee War of 1839, the Cherokee communities in Texas were once again forcibly removed to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. When Union troops took control of Cherokee territory in 1863, many "Southern" Cherokees fled to Texas, but after the war, most of them returned to their homes in Indian Territory.

In 1806 a band of Cherokee, most likely migrating south from Cherokee settlements in Arkansas in the Louisiana Territory, founded a village along the Red River. That same year, an intertribal delegation, including Cherokee, petitioned the Spanish officials at Nacogdoches for permission to settle there, which was granted. Cherokee immigration into Texas increased between 1812 and 1819. The Republic of Texas, following Sam Houston's recommendations, established a reservation for the Cherokee, but the negotiated Treaty of 1836 was never ratified (See below).

The Bowl, a former Chickamauga chief, led many Cherokee families into Texas in 1820. They settled near present-day Dallas but were forced by local tribes to move east into what is now Rusk County, Texas. By 1822, an estimated 800 Cherokee lived in Texas.

When Texas passed from Spanish to Mexican governance, Cherokee petitioned the new Mexican authorities for formal land grants but were denied. In 1830, an estimated 800 Cherokee lived in three to seven settlements in Texas. When the Texas Revolution came, the Cherokee settlements tried to remain neutral.

Having married into a Cherokee family and having a long-standing relationship with Chief Bowl, Sam Houston sought an alliance with the Cherokee while he served as President of Texas. General Houston, with fellow commissioners John Forbes and John Cameron, negotiated a treaty with the settlements for the east Texas lands north of the San Antonio Road and between the Angelina and Neches rivers. This would have created a reservation in the greater part of present-day Cherokee County, all of Smith County and parts of Gregg, Rusk and Van Zandt Counties.

The Senate of the Republic of Texas, however, tabled and refused to ratify the treaty. The settlements, who already thought they had conceded enough in accepting the limits of the treaty, became extremely agitated. When, almost immediately, the Land Office began issuing patents to lands within the Cherokee Nation, the immediate and increasing influx of Anglo settlers into their territory did little to calm resentment.

There was also residual bitterness among some Tejanos still loyal to Mexico and others who felt mistreated by, as they saw it, the new Anglo ruling class. The atmosphere in the Nacogdoches district became tense in early 1838. Complicating matters was that some in the Cherokee settlements were also still loyal to Mexico.

By the summer of that year, there were rumblings of coming insurrection from either or both of those factions, and a contingent of Tejanos led by Vicente Córdova (a former alcalde of Nacogdoches) gathered under arms and, in an affair known as the Córdova Rebellion, began raids against Anglo settlers. Some from the Cherokee settlements were believed to have joined Cordova. In the summer of 1838, evidence was discovered of an active Mexican intrigue to incite members of the east Texas settlements against the Republic.