Choctaw

The Choctaw Indians resided in present-day central and eastern Mississippi and claimed rights over territory extending to the Mississippi River, the Gulf Coast, and into present-day Alabama. Their population numbered about 20,000 in 1700, dropped to about 14,000 in the middle of the 18th century, and began to grow again in the latter half of the century. There existed among the Choctaw three principal geographic and political divisions: the western, eastern, and Six Towns (or southern) divisions that reflected the diverse ethnic origins of the Choctaw people. Sometime between Spaniard Hernando de Soto’s military expedition through the Southeast in the 1540s and 1699, when the

French arrived on the Gulf Coast, distinct groups of southeastern Indians had joined together to form the historically known Choctaw. The most likely reason for this migration is that smallpox unleashed by de Soto’s campaign ravaged southeastern Indian populations, encouraging the refugees to join culturally similar peoples for safety in numbers.

The Choctaw welcomed the new French presence on the Gulf Coast and along the Mississippi River in the early decades of the 18th century because they needed a counterweight to British-sponsored slave raids into their villages. Armed with British guns, the Creek Indians and other groups residing close to British settlements in Carolina seized upwards of 1,000 Choctaw in the late 1600s for sale to the West Indies. Once the French arrived in the area, the Choctaw acquired their own guns and successfully countered the slave-catching attacks. Because of this aid from France, the Choctaw remained closely allied to that country until France’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War in 1763. In the 1720s and 1730s the Choctaw assisted France in attacking and driving out the Natchez Indians from the Mississippi River area after the Natchez had rebelled against the French presence. Similarly, the Choctaw waged intermittent war against another French enemy, the Chickasaw Indians, throughout the 18th century until 1763.

Not all Choctaw approved of an alliance solely with France. In the late 1740s a civil war broke out among the Choctaw divisions, in part over whether to form a trade alliance with Britain. Certain western division warriors, such as Red Shoes, attacked French traders and officials in their towns, thus igniting the civil war (1746-50) that caused the deaths of hundreds of Choctaw. Nevertheless, the Choctaw continued to seek a British trade alliance after 1750, and they stubbornly resisted being dependent on only one European power.

Further reading: James Taylor Carson, Searching for the Brigh-t Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Patricia Galloway, Choctaw Genesis, 1500-1700 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).

—Greg O’Brien