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

6. The Choctaw Tribal Council, 1945–1965

chapter six The Choctaw Tribal Council, 1945–1965 The creation of the Tribal Council in 1945 marked the Mississippi Choctaws’ official political rebirth, but it did not create an autonomous government. Bureau of Indian Affairs (bia) paternalism frustrated the council’s attempts to administer their shared resources in ways congruent with Choctaw values.1 This led many council members to blame the Indian Reorganization Act and to search for ways to circumvent its limitations. When Choctaw assertions of sovereignty brought them into conflict with agency personnel, they continued to appeal to their congressional representatives, but they also began to work with Indian advocacy groups. They strengthened their communities by partnering with state and county agencies, and they continued to broker relations with outsiders through fairs, stickball games, and crafts. The council’s unrelenting pursuit of Article 14 claims suggests that land and treaty promises still undergirded Choctaw nation building. The Mississippi Choctaws’ experiences from 1945 to 1965 confirm other studies demonstrating that American Indians worked steadily toward self-determination despite the looming threat of a new policy called termination.2 This policy called for the dissolution of the trust relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government and will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.3 This chapter focuses on the tribal council’s attempts to create a government that upheld Choctaw values while promoting development and selfdetermination . The council began functioning at the end of World 132 The Choctaw Tribal Council, 1945–1965 War II, but Choctaws had begun working towards self-sufficiency during the war. Choctaws in World War II World War II brought significant changes to Indian Country. Indians served in the armed forces, worked in defense industries, and supplied food and raw materials for the war effort. These actions brought greater prosperity and new perspectives to many American Indians.4 Estimates of Mississippi Choctaws who served in the war range from 102 to 150.5 On the home front, the war depleted the Choctaws’ labor force, and women stepped up to run farms and meet sharecropping obligations.6 Choctaws who remained in Mississippi supported the war and worked toward self-sufficiency through two programs designed to encourage agricultural production. Choctaws embraced the federal government’s Live At Home (lah) and Food for Victory (ffv) programs. In the lah program, federal and county agricultural agencies joined the Choctaw Agency to promote self-sufficient farming as part of the war effort.7 By 1944 agent Archie H. McMullen, who had replaced Hector in 1938, proudly proclaimed widespread Choctaw participation, for landlords who had opposed gardening now encouraged it to offset rationing. By 1946 these small truck gardens supplied enough crops for most Choctaw families to live at subsistence levels.8 The Food for Victory Program was less successful. The government encouraged growing oil-producing seeds, and the Choctaws chose peanuts . They produced over one thousand bushels in 1941, but production declined over the next four years because the necessary harvesting machines went to “other farmers” (the implication being white farmers). By 1945 most Choctaws were too discouraged to continue.9 Although subsistence farming helped stave off hunger and malnutrition , the war brought limited prosperity to Choctaw communities. From 1939 to 1945, 252 Indian families on tribal lands earned an average of $307 annually from farming and $53 from wage work. The 163 sharecropper families earned more, taking in from $600 to $1,000, be- 133 The Choctaw Tribal Council, 1945–1965 cause wartime labor shortages drove up wages and some landlords offered jobs in their sawmills. Choctaw women and schoolgirls produced crafts to supplement their family incomes.10 Money sent home from relatives in the armed services, which McMullen estimated at roughly $70,000 over the course of the war, also aided Choctaw families. Most of these funds went into farming, but some Choctaws used the extra cash for consumer goods, purchasing radios, vehicles, and sewing machines.11 These changes enhanced the quality of life for some families, but many Choctaws hoped for more widespread prosperity through collective action. Now that they had a council, the Choctaws could develop their joint resources. Beginning in 1944, a ten-year lease with the Shell Oil company delivered a tribal income of $21,105.25 for the first year and $5,225.75 annually thereafter. A ten-year farm lease in the Bogue Homa Community also generated funds.12 What did this economic data mean in relative...