The Choctaw tribe, or Chahtas, is one of the foremost Native American tribes that thrived in the Southeastern part of the US (present-day Mississippi) but can be found presently in Oklahoma.
They are among the few indigenous peoples tribes who rapidly embraced modernization following contact with the Europeans.
The Choctaw boasts of a rich history that cuts across their language, culture, and lifestyle, which bears a tremendous impact on the outlook of the tribe to this day.
But how did these changes come about? We review the evolution of the tribe from the days of pre-colonial ties down to present times.
Choctaw Tribe History
Pre-Colonial Contact
Between 800–1500 BCE, the Choctaw people, alongside the Chickasaw tribe, are believed to have resided in the regionally organized Moundville polity in the Alabama area.
This period coincided with the Mississippian era. It showed that the surrounding tribes in the vicinity, including the Choctaw tribe, had territories tending from the Mississippi River valley to as far as Eastern, Southeastern, and Midwestern parts of the United States.
These tribes shared an organized network of culture, religion, and trade.
In the 16th century, the tribes in the Alabama polity played host to their first Old world visitors, the Spanish, who arrived from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
However, the major contact the Choctaws had with Europeans came about after the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca, a survivor of the Narváez expedition, returned to Spain and reported the vast riches in the New World.
Cabeza de Vaca is said to have described the New World as the “richest Country in the World.”
The reports of Cabeza de Vaca led the Spanish crown to commission Hernando de Soto, a distinguished conquistador, to lead the Spanish first major expedition into the interior parts of North America.
Between 1540 and 1543, Hernando de Soto traveled through territories occupied by the Native Americans, including those of the Choctaw.
With his militia equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, Hernando de Soto exerted his will on the tribes and created a reputation for his brutality and highhandedness.
But this didn’t go down well with the Choctaw, who, in the Battle of Mabila, lured Hernando de Soto into a false sense of relaxation and security and then attacked him.
That attack ripped apart the expedition of the Spanish conquistador, which led to the end of the expedition.
17th Century
The 17th century saw the Choctaws move from their previous residence in Mississippi due to the threat of depopulation and mingled with the Plaquemine people as they lived to the west.
This combination of the Choctaws, the Plaquemine, and the prairie people eventually formed a new tribe of Choctaw over several years through ethnogenesis.
The 17th century also saw the Choctaw people encounter the French.
In 1699, a French soldier, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, made the French first recorded direct contact with the Choctaw tribe.
It has been proposed that the tribe may have also interacted with the French through illegal fur trade afterward.
At the same time, the French met the tribe, and several English traders began interaction with the Choctaw tribe through the Chickasaw and Muscogee Creek tribes.
The interaction between the French and the Choctaw soon led to an alliance against slavery raids from rival tribes allied with English colonizers.
The contact the tribe had with Europeans soon set the tribe at odds, leading to the formation of three political regions within the tribe.
The regions were known for their alliances with the French, Spanish, and English.
Tension soon rose, and thus the Choctaw Civil war, which occurred between 1747 and 1750, began.
The French-backed Choctaw tribe proved victorious and thus began directing matters in the tribe.
With the French loss to the English in the Seven Years’ War, the territories in the New World claimed by the French were ceded to the English.
As such, the English became the tribe’s dominant European partner between 1763 to 1781.
The American Revolution soon set the tribe at odds over support for the English or the Spanish.
These led to loose affiliations and loyalty to the Spanish and the American rebels among the tribe.
With the victory of the American rebels, America, through George Washington’s six-point plan, began to transform the culture of American Indian tribes.
The plan by Washington soon led the matrilineal society of the Choctaw to support marriage between daughters of Choctaw chiefs eager to make alliances with the Americans and Americans.
Children from these unions were taught in American schools and rose to become negotiators and interpreters for US-Choctaw relations.
These actions set in motion events that led to the signing of the Treaty of Hopewell in January 1786,
18th Century
Despite the formation of positive relations between the US and the Choctaw, the war of 1812 was a result of a few Native American tribes’ alliance to expel US settlers from their territories.
The Choctaw, however, did not align with e other tribes due to the positive results they derived from peaceful relations with the Americans.
They, however, allied with the US and fought in the war.
The formidable relations between the tribe and the US did not make them immune to blackmail and American threats.
To persuade the tribe to sign the Treaty of Doak, threat and blackmail were the major persuasion the US applied.
The treaty was of notable importance to the tribe as article 4 of the treaty prepared the tribe to become citizens of the US.
The leaders of the tribe, realizing armed conflict would be of great detriment to the tribe, drafted a treaty to ensure the preservation of the rights of the tribe members.
The election of US President Andrew Jackson soon saw the tribe realize that a forceful removal from their traditional lands after years of encroachment was imminent.
However, with the passing of the Indian Removal Act, the Choctaw and the US reached an agreement known as the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and signed on September 27, 1830.
The treaty proved to be one of the biggest transfers of land ownership between the US and a Native American tribe without warfare.
The treaty also made them the first ethnic group of non-European origin to become US citizens.
The tribe had this point dissolved into two factions, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, who submitted to federal and state laws, and the autonomous Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Starting from 1831, the tribe, who had ceded 11 million acres of land to the US, began emigrating from their traditional lands.
15,000 Choctaw tribe members moved from to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, with about 2500 Choctaws dying. The removal of the tribe continued down to the 20th CenturyCentury.
During the civil war, the Choctaw people (Indian Territory and Mississippi tribes) sided with the Confederate State of America.
The end of the civil war saw the Indian Territory Choctaw tribe cede their western lands to the US and offer full citizenship and rights to all former spaces who decide to remain part of the tribe.
These former spaces were known as the Choctaw Freedman.
The later part of the 18th CenturyCentury saw the establishment of the Curtis Act, which brought to the end of tribal government and institutions.
Dawes Commission also managed the allocation of land to families rather than Native American tribes, which led to the registration of all tribe members.
At the end of registration, it was reported that the Indian Territory Choctaw Nation had a population of 18,981, 1,639 Mississippi Choctaws, and 5,994 descendants of formerly enslaved people held in Choctaw territories.
During this period, the territories of the Indian Territory in Oklahoma were admitted into the union of US states as Oklahoma.
20th Century – Present
A few decades into the 20th century, there were major improvements in the conditions of the Mississippi Choctaws, who were approaching extinction.
The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act signed by President Franklin Roosevelt helped the tribe’s survival and improvement, particularly the Mississippi Choctaw, who rebranded as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
The tribe members also played a part in the US war efforts in World War I and II, as they were used as code talkers.
For their significant contribution to the World War I war efforts, the French government awarded the Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Mérite (the Knight of the National Order of Merit) to the tribe Code talkers.
The civil rights movement proved to be significant to the Choctaw tribes and other Indigenous peoples tribe as they soon began to earn more economic opportunities.
This began a string of developments that have seen the tribe continues to thrive economically and socially down to our time.
Choctaw Culture
Religion
The Choctaw tribe worshipped the sun and believed in the existence of good and bad spirits.
Worship of the sun greatly influenced their way of life, especially concerning diplomacy.
Diplomats from the tribe only had talks on sunny days, and on cloudy days when a conference was scheduled, the tribe diplomat was known to delay talks until the sun returned.
This was because they believed that the sun made lol conversation honest.
The tribe believed the evil spirit, known as the Impashilup (soul eater) or the Na-lusa-chi-to (the big black one), existed to harm people.
It is believed that the Choctaw tribe began including prayer in their religious rites after meeting with missionaries.
But before that, prophets in the tribe were known to address the sun.
Warfare
It was the custom of the Choctaw people to hold council meetings that lasted eight days before the war was declared.
Superstition also influenced their war tactics, and it was common for the tribe to consult Manitou carried by the chief. War prisoners were displayed as war trophies.
As opposed to other tribes who melted out cruelty on prisoners, the tribe often killed their prisoners without much suffering and had the hair and skin of the corpse converted to the scalp.
The remaining body parts are buried after being cut into various parts, and the upper part is displayed as trophies.
The trophies were danced around by women and placed on the top of hot houses until they decayed.
Decapitation was considered an honor by the tribe.
Language
The language spoken by the Choctaw was of the Muskogean family.
The language was quite known by notable Americans, including US presidents William Henry Johnson and Andrew Jackson.
Tribe members partly lost the language as many Choctaw children were sent to boarding schools where they were forced to converse in English, which made speaking the Choctaw language difficult for such ones.
Choctaw schools administered by Choctaws existed, which helped children who attended these schools retain their mother to hue and the English language.
The civilization program fostered by the US for American Indians led to the formation of the written Choctaw language, which was based on the English language.
Various varieties of written Choctaw exist, but the most popular include the Byington/Swanton (Linguistic), Byington (Original), and modern.
Criminal Justice
The tribe had a set of rules that regulated the punishment for a crime in the tribe’s society.
Murder was penalized revenge; theft was penalized with restitution of the stolen goods or other forms of compensation.
Whipping also resulted from theft; 50 lashes were given for the first offense, 100 for the second, and death using the rifle for the third offense.
Invest was also frowned upon, but no record exists of punishment for the practice.
Stickball
His tribe played one of the oldest field sports in North America, the Native American Stickball.
The game involved up to 300 players with goal posts about 100 feet apart and, in some instances, located at each team’s village.
The close relations of the sport to war and its rogue Jess earned the sport the nickname “little brother of war.”
The sport was often used as a civil war of communal resolving disputes.
The game is played to this day in a more organized manner at the Choctaw Labor Day in Oklahoma and the Choctaw Indian Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Choctaw Facts
1. The tribe enjoyed stable positive relations with the Americans.
Compared to numerous indigenous peoples tribes, the Choctaw tribe enjoyed positive relations with the US.
Despite a few breakdowns in negotiations, the tribe leaders always knew that rebelling against the US would cost considerable loss of lives to the tribes.
Hence despite their mixed feelings about some policies brought forth by the US, they always sort an alternative that involved peace.
One such instance was the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek which allowed certain Choctaw tribe members to remain in Mississippi to this day.
2. During the American Civil War, the Choctaw tribe joined the Confederacy.
The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 led the tribe to withdraw from the union and join the Confederates.
This is unsurprising as the Confederates had previously opposed the forceful removal of the Indians from their lands when they bitterly opposed the Indian Relocation Act.
The Confederates lost, and the Choctaw had to cede a considerable portion of their land as they agreed to free all enslaved people and accept those who agreed to be part of the tribe fully as citizens.
The Choctaw people were slave owners and were promised sovereignty should the Confederates win the war.
3. During the Great Irish Famine, the Choctaw Agency in Fort Smith, Arkansas, donated $170 to aid starving Irish men, children, and women.
The Irish have continually remembered the generosity of the tribe since then.
In the 20th century, then-Irish president Mary Robinson exalted the Choctaw tribe’s generosity.
In 2018, the Irish head of government, Leo Varadkar, announced a scholarship that makes it possible for Choctaw students to travel to Ireland to study.
Conclusion
The rich heritage of the Choctaw tribe reveals significant details about their lives.
It also shows how adaptable and insightful the tribe proved to be in handling the power grapple between the European colonists and, subsequently, the Americans.
The tribe continues to uphold the values that were keen on their survival.
