TEMPE (?-?). Tempe (Timpey, Timby) became chief of the Middle Coushatta Village (Long King's Village in Polk County) after the death of Long King around 1838. He was well known among Texans during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Sam Houston occasionally sent greetings to Tempe by means of letters or messengers. Gustav Dresel, a German merchant in Houston, wrote in his journal of his years in Texas that Tempe frequently came to his store to sell furs and to purchase supplies. In 1882 L. W. Currie, Presbyterian missionary to the Alabama-Coushatta Indians, wrote in a report to the Office of Indian Affairs that the Polk County Indians informed him that Tempe had served as a Coushatta chief and that Tempe Creek in western Polk County was named for this Coushatta chief. The date of his death is not available in the records of this tribe.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gustav Dresel, Houston Journal: Adventures in North America and Texas, 1837-1841, trans. and ed. Max Freund (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1954). Howard N. Martin, "Polk County Indians: Alabamas, Coushattas, Pakana Muskogees," East Texas Historical Journal 17 (1979).
