D istant relatives of the Choctaw, the Chickasaw Indians lived in the northeastern corner of Mississippi until the 1830s when President Andrew Jackson targeted the tribe for removal. In 1832, Chickasaw Chief, Levi Colbert, signed the Treaty of Pontotoc. The Chickasaws agreed to cede all their lands in Mississippi and Alabama to the U.S. The lands would be marked as "public" and sold to white settlers. The money taken from the sale of the land would be placed in a special fund for the tribe. Chickasaw representatives were sent into Indian Territory in 1832 to chose the land on which they wanted to live. On their way, the Chickasaw contingent passed through Little Rock and met with members of the Choctaw tribe who were willing to sell them parts of their land, which they did not purchase.
From 1833 to 1836, Chickasaw lands in Mississippi were overrun by white settlers. They finally purchased land from the Choctaw near Fort Towson and gave the Chickasaw the privileges of citizenship within the tribe. Pleased with the arrangement, the Chickasaws promised to be ready to move by 1836. Of the thousands expected to show up, only 300 moved in the first days of Chickasaw removal.
The first removal party encountered heavy rains in Arkansas that prolonged their travel time. They had traveled in an orderly manner across the swamps and prairies of east Arkansas, averaging about 15 miles a day. The Chickasaws combated the intense summer heat by traveling at night. They continued this pattern and reached the north side of the Arkansas River at Little Rock.
 At Little Rock, the Chickasaw tribe encountered a division within the group over which removal route they should take. Chief Sealy wanted to go by land to the Red River while the government-appointed conductor wanted to travel by boat. The group broke into angry factions and half headed down the Southwest Trail under the leadership of Sealy. He decided "to go by the Red River…when and where they pleased" and left 150 of the original group with the conductors. In 1836, the steamboat landed safely at Fort Coffee but Chief Sealy and his group were nowhere to be found.
The conductor J.N. Millard, set off to look for Sealy. What he found was a grim picture in Montgomery County. Supplies had not been laid out on Sealy's route and many of the group were sick. They had lived off stolen or low supplies and were disheartened. Millard noted that, "provisions having [not] been provided …[and] efforts were again made to induce them to return and take [the water] route, but to no purpose; they declared they would sooner die than change the way which they had determined to go, whereupon a wagon was procured to transport the sick." After getting the group headed on the right road, Millard backtracked with a Choctaw interpreter and found several Chickasaws dying or sick with fever.
Millard managed to provide these Chickasaws with a stern "talk [that] was held to them by myself, in which was stated in the most positive manner and plainest terms [that] their unaccountable and singular conduct [was not appreciated]…" The speech made no impact on Sealy's group. Millard later noted that several of his Chickasaws had thrown their baggage out of the wagons and said that "they will have their own time and manner to get to their country, and seem to take great satisfaction in disregarding all directions and orders they receive."
Hunting and loitering their way through south Arkansas, Sealy's Chickasaws made little progress. Millard feared military force would have to be used and he regretted such an action since the Chickasaws showed no tendency towards violence. Over the slow, hot trek, Sealy lost ponies and met with whites that sold them liquor in Pike County. After this disastrous encounter, the next two days were spent sobering up many that had drunk too much.
In 1837, several groups of Chickasaws were leaving Mississippi for Arkansas. Arriving in Memphis, one group refused to get on board a steamboat after hearing of a tragic boating accident involving the Creeks during removal. After much persuasion, they boarded the boats and floated to Little Rock via the Arkansas River and landed at Fort Coffee in November.
Another group crossed the swamps of eastern Arkansas in the winter of 1837 by pony. Millard, who had returned to Mississippi to gather another group of Chickasaws for removal, noted that the group met with problems in St. Francis County. "Not less than 70 or 80 ponies have been bogged down and left dead in the mud," he said. He did manage to persuade these land travelers, who were extremely tired, to travel by steamboat.
In 1838, a group of Chickasaws traveled by themselves and landed at various places in Arkansas, such as Helena. They were determined not to be bothered by removal groups or white settlers. Most planned to hunt through the winter months before arriving in the Indian Territory in the summer of 1839.
Approximately 4,000 Chickasaws and 1,000 of their slaves were removed during the late 1830s and early 1840s. They were the last of the five southeastern tribes to be removed and they settled within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation until 1855. Friction grew between the two groups and the Chickasaws established an independent government and boundaries lines for their land immediately to the west of the Choctaws in south central Oklahoma. Today, the Chickasaws have executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government that provide various social, economic, educational, and cultural services to over 35,000 tribal members.
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