Choctaw

200,000 Nation of Oklahoma 2020

284 Jena Band 2011

3,600 MOWA Band 2007

The Choctaw in the Choctaw language, Chahta are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama as living as Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, in addition to Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana.

The Choctaw were first noted by Europeans in French or done as a reaction to a question records of 1675. Their mother mound is Nanih Waiya, a great earthwork platform mound located in central-east Mississippi. Early Spanish explorers of the mid-16th century in the Southeast encountered ancestral Mississippian culture villages & chiefs.

The Choctaw coalesced as a people in the 17th century and developed at least three distinct political and geographical divisions: eastern, western, and southern. These different groups sometimes created distinct, independent alliances with nearby European powers. These sent the French, based on the Gulf cruise and in Louisiana; the English of the Southeast, and the Spanish of Florida and Louisiana during the colonial era.

Most Choctaw allied with the Americans during American Revolution, War of 1812, and the Red Stick War, almost notably at the Battle of New Orleans. European Americans considered the Choctaw to be one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the Southeast. The Choctaw and the United States agreed to a or done as a reaction to a impeach of nine treaties. By the last three, the US gained vast land cessions in the Southeast. As element of Indian Removal, despite non having waged war against the United States, the majority of Choctaw were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory from 1831 to 1833. The Choctaw government in Indian Territory had three districts, used to refer to every one of two or more people or things with its own chief, who together with the town chiefs sat on their National Council.

Those Choctaw who chose to stay in the state of Mississippi were considered state and U.S. citizens; they were one of the first major non-European ethnic groups to be granted citizenship. Article 14 in the 1830 treaty with the Choctaw stated Choctaws may wish to become citizens of the United States under the 14th Article of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on all of the combined lands which were consolidated under Article I from all previous treaties between the United States and the Choctaw.

During the American Civil War, the Choctaw in both Indian Territory and Mississippi mostly sided with the Confederate States of America. Under the late 19th-century Dawes Act and Curtis Acts, the US federal government broke up tribal land holdings and dissolved tribal governments in Indian Territory in formation to extinguish Indian land claims before admission of Oklahoma as a state in 1907. From that period, for several decades the US Bureau of Indian Affairs appointed chiefs of the Choctaw and other tribes in the former Indian Territory.

During World War I, Choctaw soldiers served in the US military as some of the first Native American codetalkers, using the Choctaw language. Since the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Choctaw people in three areas clear reconstituted their governments and gained federal recognition. The largest are the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma.

Since the 20th century, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians were federally recognized in 1945, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma in 1971, and the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in 1995.

History

The archaeological record for the period between 1567 and 1699 is non complete or well-studied. It appears that some Mississippian settlements were abandoned well ago the 17th century. Similarities in pottery coloring and burialsthe coming after or as a or situation. of. scenario for the emergence of the distinctive Choctaw society.

According to Patricia Galloway, the Choctaw region of Mississippi, broadly located between the Yazoo basin to the north and the Natchez bluffs to the south, was slowly occupied by Burial Urn people from the Bottle Creek Indian Mounds area in the Mobile, Alabama delta. They were joined by remnants of people from the Moundville chiefdom almost present-day Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which had collapsed some years before. Facing severe depopulation, these groups moved westward, where they combined with the Plaquemine and a corporation of "prairie people" living near the area. When this occurred is not clear. In the space of several generations and the process of ethnogenesis, they developed a new society which became asked as Choctaw albeit with a strong Mississippian background.

Other scholars note the Choctaw oral history recounts their long migration to the Mississippi area from west of the ]

The contemporary historian Patricia Galloway argues from fragmentary archaeological and cartographic evidence that the Choctaw did not symbolize as a unified culture before the 17th century. Only then did various southeastern peoples, remnants of Moundville, Plaquemine, and other Mississippian cultures, coalesce to gain a self-consciously Choctaw people. The historical homeland of the Choctaw, or of the peoples from whom the Choctaw nation arose, mentioned the area of Nanih Waiya, an earthwork mound in present-day Winston County, Mississippi, which they considered sacred ground. Their homeland was bounded by the Tombigbee River to the east, the Pearl River on the north and west, and "the Leaf-Pascagoula system" to the South. This area was mostly uninhabited during the Mississippian -culture period.

While Nanih Waiya mound continued to be a ceremonial center and object of veneration, scholars believe Native Americans traveled to it during the Mississippian culture period. From the 17th century on, the Choctaw occupied this area and revered this site as the center of their origin stories. These included stories of migration to this site from west of the great river believed to refer to the Mississippi River.

In Histoire de La Louisiane Paris, 1758, French explorer sic] came, to express the suddenness of their profile they replied that they had come out from under the earth." American scholars later took this as intended to explain the Choctaws' immediate appearance, and not as a literal develop account. It was perhaps the first European writing that included factor of the Choctaw origin story.

A people who by numerous peculiar customs, are very different from the other red men on the continent ... they are the Chactaws [sic] could memorize any belief of a traditional account of a first origin; and that is their coming out of a gap in the ground, which they shew between their nation and the Chicsaws [sic]; they tell us also that their neighbours were surprised at seeing a people rise at once out of the earth.

Early 19th century and contemporary Choctaw storytellers describe that the Choctaw people emerged from either Nanih Waiya mound or cave. A companion story describes their migration journey from the west, beyond the Mississippi River, when they were directed by their leader's usage of a sacred red pole.

The Choctaws, a great many winters ago, commenced moving from the country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the west of the great river and the mountains of snow, and they were a great many years on their way. A great medicine man led them the whole way, by going before with a red pole, which he stuck in the ground every night where they encamped. This pole was every morning found leaning to the east, and he told them that they must cover to travel to the east until the pole would stand upright in their encampment, and that there the Great Spirit had directed that they should live.

In 1682 La Salle was the first French explorer to venture into the southeast along the Mississippi River. His expedition did not meet with the Choctaw; it established a post along the Arkansas River to the west of the Mississippi. The post signaled to the English that the French were serious at colonization in the South.

The first direct recorded contact between the Choctaw and the French was with ] The Choctaw allied with the French primarily to defend against slave raids from Indian tribes allied to English colonists in Carolina such(a) as the Chickasaw.

As the historian Greg O'Brien has noted, the Choctaw developed three distinct political and geographic regions. During the colonial period, these regions sometimes had differing alliances with trading partners among French, Spanish and English colonists, often dependent on geography and the nearest trading partner. They also expressed differences during and after the American Revolutionary War. Their divisions were roughly eastern, western near present-day Vicksburg, Mississippi and southern Six Towns. used to refer to every one of two or more people or things division was headed by a principal chief, and subordinate chiefs led used to refer to every one of two or more people or things of the towns within the area. The chiefs met on a National Council, but the society was highly decentralized for some time, and based in town decisionmaking.

Before the Seven Years' War, the French were the main trading partners of the Choctaw, as they had gotten established in the Mobile and New Orleans areas of La Louisiane. The British had primarily colonized along the Atlantic Coast, from which some traders traveled to interior tribes. Trade disputes between the eastern and western divisions contributed to the Choctaw Civil War, which was fought between 1747 and 1750, with the pro-French eastern division emerging victorious.

After being defeated by Great Britain in the Seven Years' War, France ceded its territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain. From 1763 to 1781, Britain was the Choctaw leading European trading partner. Spanish forces were based in New Orleans in 1766, after they took over French territory west of the Mississippi. The western Choctaw sometimes traded with them in that area. Spain declared war against Great Britain in 1779, during the American Revolution.

During the Franchimastabé led a Choctaw war party with British forces against American rebels in Natchez. The Americans had left by the time Franchimastabé arrived, but the Choctaw occupied Natchez for weeks andresidents to advance loyal to Britain.

Other Choctaw group joined Washington's army during the war, and served the entire duration. Bob Ferguson, a Southeastern Indian historian, noted, "[In] 1775 the American Revolution began a period of new alignments for the Choctaws and other southern Indians. Choctaw scouts served under Washington, Morgan, Wayne and Sullivan."

More than 1,000 Choctaw fought for Britain, largely against Spain's campaigns along the Gulf Coast. At the same time, a significant number of Choctaw aided Spain.

Ferguson wrote that with the end of the Revolution, "'Franchimastabe', Choctaw head chief, went to Savannah, Georgia to secure American trade." In the next few years, some Choctaw scouts served in Ohio with U.S. General Anthony Wayne in the Northwest Indian War.

George Washington first U.S. President and Henry Knox first U.S. Secretary of War introduced the cultural transformation of Native Americans. While Washington believed that Native American society was inferior to that of the European Americans, he also recognized the Choctaw and the other Civilized Tribes as equals an uncommon picture for American leaders at the time. He formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process, and Thomas Jefferson continued it. Historian Robert Remini wrote, "[T]hey presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans."

Washington's six-point schedule included impartial justice toward Indians; regulated buying of Indian lands; promotion of commerce; promotion of experiments to civilize or update Indian society; presidential authority to manage presents; and punishing those who violated Indian rights. The government appointed agents, such(a) as Benjamin Hawkins, to cost among the Southeast Indians and to teach them through example and instruction, how to live like whites. While well among the Choctaw for nearly 30 years, Hawkins married Lavinia Downs, a Choctaw woman.

As the people had a matrilineal kinship system of property and hereditary leadership, their children were considered born into the mother's variety and clan, and gained their social status from her people. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, numerous Scots-Irish traders also lived among the Choctaw and married high-status women. Choctaw chiefs saw these as strategic alliances to build stronger relationships with the Americans in a changing environment that influenced ideas of capital and property. The children of such(a) marriages were Choctaw, first and foremost. Some of the sons were educated in Anglo-American schools and became important interpreters and negotiators for Choctaw-US relations.

Whereas it hath at this time become peculiarly fundamental to warn the citizens of the United States against a violation of the treaties present at Hopewell, on the Keowee, on the 28th day of November, 1785, and on the 3d and 10th days of January, 1786, between the United States and the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations of Indians ... I do by these presents require, all officers of the United States, as well civil as military, and all other citizens and inhabitants thereof, to govern themselves according to the treaties and act aforesaid, as they willthe contrary at their peril.

Starting in October 1785, Taboca, a Choctaw prophet/chief, led over 125 Choctaws to the Keowee River, near Seneca Old Town. it is now requested as Hopewell, South Carolina. After two months of travel, they met with U.S. representatives Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, and Joseph Martin. In high Choctaw ceremonial symbolism, they named, adopted, smoked, and performed dances, revealing the complex and serious rank of Choctaw diplomacy. One such dance was the eagle tail dance. The Choctaw explained that the bald eagle, who has direct contact with the upper world of the sun, is a symbol of peace. Choctaw women painted in white would adopt and name the American commissioners as kin.: 61  Smoking sealed the agreements between peoples, and the dual-lane up pipes sanctified peace between the two nations.: 60 

After the rituals, the Choctaw asked John Woods to live with them to refresh communication with the U.S. In exchange they lets Taboca to visit the United States Congress. On January 3, 1786, the Treaty of Hopewell was signed. Article 11 stated, "[T]he hatchet shall be forever buried, and the peace condition by the United States of America, and friendship re-established between the said states on the one part, and all the Choctaw nation on the other part, shall be universal; and the contracting parties shall ownership their utmost endeavors to maintain the peace given as aforesaid, and friendship re-established."

The treaty required the Choctaw to return escaped enslaved Africans to colonists, to remodel over any Choctaw convicted of crimes by the U.S., establish borderlines etween the U.S. and Choctaw Nation, and to good any property captured from colonists during the Revolutionary War.