chief of the Mexican military forces in the north, issued instructions on stirring up the Indians in Texas;[4]  and from the Nacogdoches area Vicente Córdova, styled by General Valentín Canalizo as "Commander of the Mexican forces in Texas," kept the Mexican government informed of the steps he was taking in Texas to "foster the favorable feelings which the faithful Mexicans have always entertained" toward the mother country.[5]  As a part of the plan, the Indians were to be guaranteed possession of their hunting grounds in Texas and were to constitute a buffer state between the Mexican nation and the Americans of the United States.

The plan for a united attack assumed more definite form and more ambitious proportions in 1837. In the summer of 1837 the Cherokees sent a delegation to Matamoros to confer with the Mexican authorities,[6]  who had nearly three thousand troops assembled there under General Filisola.[7]  The plans called for the Indians to rendezvous north of the San Antonio road at some point between San Antonio and Nacogdoches, as soon as the leaves put out. When the Indians were assembled and ready, a Mexican force of five thousand men would cross the Río Grande and advance from the west to meet them. "The Texans were to be exterminated or expelled, and the Indians were to have the territory, to divide among the various bands that had participated in the war."[8]  The Comanche advance to the outskirts of Matamoros late in July 1837, may have interfered with the carrying out of the plot in 1837, but it seems to have been kept alive by Filisola, his successor,