Chocktaw
Citizens of the state of Mississippi rejoiced when they heard about the election of President Andrew Jackson in 1828. He represented himself as a man of the people and sympathized with those wanting to move the American Indians from their homes. For the Choctaw Indians, the election of Jackson was a frightening thought. Since the 1500s, the Choctaws had been negotiating with Europeans and slowly losing lands to the colonial governments and later, the U.S.
Prior to 1830, the U.S. government signed several treaties with the Choctaws. In 1820, the first, large-scale removal meeting with the Choctaws was held on a piece of flat, grassy land along the Natchez Trace Road called Doak's Stand. At first, the Choctaw refused to move until Christian missionaries convinced the tribe to move west of the Mississippi River. Cyrus Kingsbury, one of the Presbyterian missionaries living among the Choctaws, gave his personal approval to the U.S. plan for removal. Under the direction of Chief Pushmataha, the Choctaws signed the Treaty of Doak's Stand. It gave the U.S. tribal land in western Mississippi for farming and hunting lands from the Arkansas to the Red Rivers. The U.S. government agreed to give each Choctaw emigrant a blanket, kettle, rifle, gun, bullet molds, and enough ammunition for hunting and defense for one year. Each warrior and family was to receive enough corn to support themselves for one year after resettlement.
From 1820 to 1830, the Choctaws slowly moved into Arkansas and Indian Territory while white settlers moved illegally onto tribal lands in Mississippi. In 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek brought members of the Choctaw tribe to the treaty ground once again. Saloon owners, prostitutes, frontiersmen, religious leaders, and gambling men were ordered by the U.S. government to leave the area in order not to influence tribal members. The treaty called for the Choctaws to abandon all their lands in Mississippi. They would receive money ($20,000 per year for 20 years), educational facilities for children, a new council house, church, farm and household goods (2,100 blankets), food for a year, and payment for improvements they made to their land in Mississippi. The Choctaws did not like this treaty and the U.S. threatened military retaliation.
Facing a violent situation, the Choctaws reconsidered their position and agreed to leave Mississippi by 1833. Wagons, steamboats, and roads were used to move the first half of the tribe between 1831 and 1833. A Choctaw leader, David Folsom, wrote in a letter, "We are exceedingly tired…We have just learned of the…Choctaw treaty. Our doom is sealed. There is no other course for us but to turn out faces and our new homes toward the setting sun."
In the 1820s, two routes crossing Arkansas were available to the Choctaws. The first route crossed the Mississippi River, traveled up the Arkansas River to the mouth of the White River. The Choctaws were loaded on steamboats and landed at the territorial capitol of Little Rock before disembarking and going to a site three miles south of town called Camp Pope. After a few days of rest, the group traveled down the Southwest Trail, passed through the community of Washington in Hempstead County, and crossed into their new home in the Red River country.
The second route was created to lessen congestion along the main water route. The Choctaws crossed the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, traveled up the Ouachita River and landed at Ecore a Fabri (Camden). Heading west, this group would join the Choctaws from the first route at Washington before traveling together to their new home. On both routes, supplies were placed at different locations. Pork, beef, flour, and vegetables were deposited at depots. These supplies were grown by Arkansas farmers and merchants. Newspapers in the territory urged Arkansas citizens to supply foodstuffs for emigrants and farmers sold their crops and goods to the U.S. government at ridiculously high prices.
Although both routes seemed adequate, the U.S. government had never conducted a large-scale removal of an entire population. Sickness, death, and exposure to the elements were a few of the problems incurred during removal. At least 1,000 members of the Choctaw tribe did not sign up to travel with the U.S. government. They joined commutations, received certificates signed by government officials, and traveled independently to their new homes. These people were usually high-ranking warriors who sold their land for a premium price to white settlers.
Arkansans viewed Choctaw removal with anger and fear. Assurances of good behavior on the part of the Choctaws came from the U.S. Secretary of War, but Arkansans still viewed the tribe as "poor deluded wretches." They were sure that the Choctaws would "[take] vengeance…on weak and defenseless people, for injuries sustained in [Mississippi]."
In the 1830s, the Choctaws fared no better on their trip across Arkansas. A sympathetic U.S. army captain commented that, "this unexpected cold weather must produce much human suffering. Our poor emigrants, many of them are quite naked, and without much shelter, must suffer…" The Arkansas River became clogged with ice, temperatures dropped below the freezing mark, and emigrants were left stranded in camps across the territory. Choctaws traveling in south Arkansas fought swamps in waist-deep water. Slower and weaker members of the tribe were left behind to fend for themselves or catch up later.
William Woodruff, editor of the pro-removal newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, painted a much different picture of Choctaw removal in 1832, after visiting Camp Pope. "We can truly say that we have never met with Indians who appear to be more content and happy than they [the Choctaws] do. They are well fed and quite as comfortably clad as Indians generally are, and we heard of but few cases of illness among them…They appear to be perfectly docile and harmless, exhibiting…no disposition to encroach on the rights of our citizens, and it gives us great satisfaction to state that we have not heard of a single instance of disturbance or collision between them and the whites."
A year later, the same newspaper reported by an anonymous contributed that, "Choctaws are dying to an alarming extent…There are 3,000 Indians and within the hearing of a gun from this spot, 100 have died within five weeks…The mortality among these people since the beginning of fall…amounts to one-fifth the whole number. The cause of so many deaths probably arises from the change of climate, the overflow of the Arkansas River, and having no physician among them except their own doctors, who are conjurers and mountebanks…" With these types of reports, the U.S. government supplies more blankets, tents, and other housekeeping items. New roads were carved out of the wilderness, bridges were built over flooding creeks and rivers, and several more military routes established.
The 1830 routes took the Choctaws across the Mississippi River at Vicksburg or Memphis. The Choctaws were then divided and sent on steamboats into Arkansas and Louisiana. Other groups went up the Arkansas River to Arkansas Post and Little Rock. Another group traveled up the Ouachita River and landed at Camden. From 1831 to 1832, the weather remained bitterly cold. Many Choctaws were hungry, sick, and destitute. The old and young died from exposure since blankets, clothing, and shoes were scarce. There were not enough wagons to carry people and the money to purchase supplies had disappeared. In the second group that crossed Arkansas, a cholera epidemic broke out among tribal members and torrential rains poured down on them as they crossed the swamps of eastern Arkansas.
In 1833, the Choctaws that crossed Arkansas resorted to using spoiled supplies, such as beef and corn that was left over from the 1832 removal. By 1834, smaller groups of Choctaw crossing through Arkansas traveled unescorted. They did not receive the benefits listed in the Treaty of Doak's Stand since the Choctaw removal books had been closed by the U.S. government.
Despite the hardships on the removal route, the Choctaws prospered in their new homes. They built towns, farms, owned hotels and blacksmith shops. Some even became large plantation owners. Children were educated and a number of religions were accepted by the tribe. Today, the Choctaw Nation is located at Durant in eastern Oklahoma. The 1884 Choctaw Capitol building houses their federally recognized government. Tribal members elect their chief and their governing document is the 1860 Constitution of the Choctaw Nation. The tribe also provides health services, housing programs, and day care for tribal members. The Choctaw National Museum is a tourist attraction. Their newspaper, the Bishnik, carries news to tribal members and the tribe sponsors the Choctaw Nation Labor Day Festival.
There were Choctaws who chose to live in Mississippi rather than move west. Today, there are approximately 24,000 acres of reservation land in counties surrounding Jackson, Mississippi, which are for the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Nation. More than 8,000 members live in central Mississippi, and almost 90 percent of the members are fluent in the Choctaw language. They produce traditional Choctaw crafts, such as beadwork, cane and oak basketry, and woodwork. Like their relatives in Oklahoma, the Mississippi Band provides many public assistance programs for tribal members.
The legacy of removal remains with the Choctaw Nation. Descendents of those people who were removed walk parts of the removal route each year when the Choctaws commemorate their trek through the south Arkansas countryside. This helps the tribal members to never forget the 20 years of suffering their people endured and the tragedy of the first attempt by the U.S. government to move an indigenous population from their homelands.
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