Choctaw Resurgence in Mississippi: Race, Class, and Nation Building in the Jim Crow South, 1830-1977

1. From the First Removal to the Second, 1830–1898

chapter one From the First Removal to the Second, 1830–1898 In 1830 agents of the United States government convinced the Choctaw Nation to sign a removal treaty by inserting a provision, Article 14, allowing some Choctaws to stay behind on allotments of land as citizens of Mississippi. The federal government failed to follow through, however, and the Choctaws who remained lost their lands. As they resisted dispossession , the Choctaws asserted a composite legal identity as both citizens of the state and Indians with a unique relationship to the federal government . They publicly leveraged their ethnicity to uphold their Article 14 claims and defend themselves against racism. In the mid-nineteenth century, they laid the foundations of the political rhetoric and strategies that they would employ over their century-long struggle for tribal rebirth. The Choctaws’ neighbors and Mississippi officials constructed a narrative about the Choctaws that suited their purposes. Settlers, speculators , and Choctaws fought over the Choctaw cession. Mississippi citizens initially gave lip service to Choctaw claims but nonetheless dispossessed the Choctaws. Over the next few decades, they came to scorn the Indians as the remnant of a once-powerful race and sought the Choctaws’ complete removal. After the Civil War, however, the Choctaws became symbols of many cherished southern values connected to race and regional identity. Interpretations of the Choctaws’ dispossession , devised by white Mississippians in the late nineteenth century , resonated well into the twentieth. These two intertwining tales began with the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. 10 From the First Removal to the Second, 1830–1898 Dispossession and Juridical Status On September 15, 1830, Major John H. Eaton and Colonel John Coffee arrived at the council grounds near Dancing Rabbit Creek hoping to persuade the leaders of the Choctaw Nation to exchange their territory in Mississippi for lands in Indian Territory.1 The Mississippi legislature had set the stage for removal earlier in the year by abolishing all tribal governments in the state, revoking all tribal laws and customs (excluding marriage), and establishing a fine of one thousand dollars and one year’s imprisonment for anyone exercising the office of “chief.” To complete their extension of state sovereignty over the Choctaws , the legislature granted them “all the rights, privileges, immunities , and franchises . . . enjoyed by free white persons.” Although this provision may appear enlightened, its ultimate purpose was to subject Choctaws to Mississippi laws and drive them out of the state.2 Choctaw leaders passionately denounced this act in their national council, and some members suggested moving to avoid being subsumed under state law. Most Choctaw leaders did not want to move, however, and the council could not act without a majority.3 The Choctaw polity had historically consisted of three autonomous geographic regions, the Eastern, the Western, and the Southern. A head mingo (Choctaw for chief) and his council of captains governed each division. Although their people were related through matrilineal kinship and shared a common world view, the Choctaws were only loosely affiliated politically until 1826, when the leaders of the Eastern and Western divisions, David Folsom and Greenwood LeFlore, united their regions under a constitution. The Southern division, led by John Garland , joined the alliance a few months later.4 These men had hoped that adopting a constitutional government would help them resist the expanding American state, but they were mistaken. Many Choctaw mingoes gradually realized that their best option was to accept removal and try to set their own terms, but there was little agreement on what those might be. When Eaton and Coffee arrived at Dancing Rabbit Creek, they faced three principal chiefs at odds 11 From the First Removal to the Second, 1830–1898 with each other: Greenwood LeFlore, mingo of the Western towns, Mushulatubbee, an important leader in the Eastern division, and Nittakaichee , mingo of the Southern division, all of whom endorsed removal but none of whom could speak for the entire Choctaw Nation.5 Whatever treaty the Choctaw leadership negotiated would have to be approved by their captains, who eschewed removal, as did the roughly six thousand Choctaws attending the deliberations. Reminding the commissioners of their military service to the United States, many Choctaws denounced removal, and the council rejected the treaty . Major Eaton replied by threatening forcible relocation, and the majority of Choctaws left the treaty grounds indignantly.6 Several Choctaw headmen remained, however, and signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek.7 Their motives were varied...