The Choctaw Nation, a proud member of the five civilized tribes, is native to the southeastern section of the United States. They can trace their ancestry back to Mississippi and even some parts of Louisiana and Alabama. Culturally, the Choctaws are a matriarchal society, which mainly survived off agriculture, hunting, and gathering. Specifically, they pride themselves on their history of complete adaptation into the European society. The Choctaw Nation accepted foreign religion, ethics, educational systems, legal systems, and even modified their agricultural and economic practices in order to survive in the overwhelming European supremacy, and did so quite efficiently.
Choctaws who remain in Mississippi tell of two brothers, Chata and Chicksah, …show more content…
Since then, the deficiency has become more apparent and many analysts have tried their hand at uncovering more information, so their history is continuously being added to. Many accounts tell of a form of traditional education, in which children were gathered together in the mornings and evenings to learn the traditions and customs of the tribe, usually by the male elders. Such accounts also render the demise of this practice the fault of the Europeans, because alcoholism caused many grandfathers and fathers to abandon the old traditions and the education of the children fell to the wayside. In “History of the American Indians”, published in 1775 by the English trader James Adair, he tells of the Choctaw medicine man, whose opinion could mean life or death. If a person was deemed to sick to survive, a medicine man could have him strangled or his neck broken, in order to put him out of his pain. Such information was said to be communicated from the Deity in the form of dreams. A doctor whose patient died might be in danger of his life or losing his position in the tribe, but since he had the ability to “foresee” the patient’s death, the latter did not have favorable odds of survival. Louis LeClerc de Milford, a Frenchman who lived with the Creek Nation and eventually became the Grand War Chief of all Creek forces, elaborated on this subject in his …show more content…
They began selling their goods to Europeans as early as the 1700’s, while trade with other southeastern tribes had been established long before that. As the United States rose to power, however, this commerce was slowly, but surely, put to a halt. In the election of President Thomas Jefferson in 1800, the more and more treaties and negotiations for native land were heaped upon not only the Choctaws, but every tribe. The Treaty of Fort Adams was signed in 1801, which gave the United States government 2,641,920 acres of land near the Yazoo river. By 1830, the Choctaws had ceded more than 23 million acres to the federal government. 1830 marked the final, and in many cases fatal, negotiation known as the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The first of the great southern tribes to leave, over 20,000 Choctaws were removed west on the journey we refer to presently as the Trail of
Choctaws who remain in Mississippi tell of two brothers, Chata and Chicksah, …show more content…
Since then, the deficiency has become more apparent and many analysts have tried their hand at uncovering more information, so their history is continuously being added to. Many accounts tell of a form of traditional education, in which children were gathered together in the mornings and evenings to learn the traditions and customs of the tribe, usually by the male elders. Such accounts also render the demise of this practice the fault of the Europeans, because alcoholism caused many grandfathers and fathers to abandon the old traditions and the education of the children fell to the wayside. In “History of the American Indians”, published in 1775 by the English trader James Adair, he tells of the Choctaw medicine man, whose opinion could mean life or death. If a person was deemed to sick to survive, a medicine man could have him strangled or his neck broken, in order to put him out of his pain. Such information was said to be communicated from the Deity in the form of dreams. A doctor whose patient died might be in danger of his life or losing his position in the tribe, but since he had the ability to “foresee” the patient’s death, the latter did not have favorable odds of survival. Louis LeClerc de Milford, a Frenchman who lived with the Creek Nation and eventually became the Grand War Chief of all Creek forces, elaborated on this subject in his …show more content…
They began selling their goods to Europeans as early as the 1700’s, while trade with other southeastern tribes had been established long before that. As the United States rose to power, however, this commerce was slowly, but surely, put to a halt. In the election of President Thomas Jefferson in 1800, the more and more treaties and negotiations for native land were heaped upon not only the Choctaws, but every tribe. The Treaty of Fort Adams was signed in 1801, which gave the United States government 2,641,920 acres of land near the Yazoo river. By 1830, the Choctaws had ceded more than 23 million acres to the federal government. 1830 marked the final, and in many cases fatal, negotiation known as the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The first of the great southern tribes to leave, over 20,000 Choctaws were removed west on the journey we refer to presently as the Trail of