Facts about Choctaw
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians play stickball every year at the Choctaw Indian Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, with the game played on a modern day football field.
Former Principal Chief Allen Wright suggested the name Oklahoma, from a contraction of the Choctaw words okla ("people") and humma ("red").
The Jena Band of Choctaw Indians received federal recognition through the federal acknowledgment process in 1995.
The Oklahoma Choctaw today are a progressive and successful people, facing the twenty-first century with renewed hope and optimism.
Their annual cultural festival, which includes Choctaw social dancing, stickball games, Choctaw princess contest, and an inter-tribal pow-wow occurs on the third weekend of June each year on their reservation lands.
Contemporary Choctaw are of two distinct groups, the tribe (in Mississippi) and the nation (in Oklahoma), with additional bands settled in Alabama and Louisiana.
Approximately 250,000 people live within the Choctaw Nation boundaries in Southeastern Oklahoma.
Some Choctaw scouts served with U.S. General Anthony Wayne in the Northwest Indian War.
Several versions of their creation and migration legends have been perpetuated by the Native Americans and remain very popular among contemporary Choctaws, especially the elderly.
Pearce, of Hazelhurst, Mississippi, organized a battalion of Choctaw Indians, of Kemper, DeKalb, Neshoba, Jasper, Scott, and Newton Counties, Mississipi, known as "First Battalion of Choctaw Indians, Confederate army."
A movement began to officially enroll more Choctaws, increase voter participation, and preserve the Choctaw language.
I shall stress the amounts of Choctaw land involved in these treaties, even though they included agreements relating to other matters, because land was the Indians' most valuable resource."
Spirited debates over a proposed constitution divided the people, but in May 1979, a new constitution was adopted by the Choctaw nation.
During the American Civil War, the Choctaws sided with the southern states.
Prayers may have been introduced by missionaries; however, Choctaw prophets were known to address the sun: an old Choctaw informed Wright that, before the arrival of the missionaries, they had no conception of prayer.
The mound and the surrounding area are sacred ground to Choctaws, and are a central point of connection between the Choctaws and their homeland.
There would be no official European contact in the area at all for more than a century, when in 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville recorded his experience with a Choctaw.
The Chickasaw come next and the Cherokee and Choctaw adapted themselves most rapidly of all.
The Choctaws still living in Mississippi make up the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, led by Chief Phillip Martin.
A new surge in popularity that has recently sprung up are garden flags, smaller (12 x 18 inches) flags that are placed on stands on the ground.
Franchimastabe, Choctaw head chief, went to Savannah, Georgia to secure American trade."
A few were induced by Tecumseh to ally themselves with the hostile Creeks, but the Nation as a whole was kept out of anti-American alliances by the influences of Apushmataha, greatest of all Choctaw chiefs.
By the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in September of 1830 the main body of the Choctaw ceded all their land east of the Mississippi river.
The Choctaws believed in a good spirit and an evil spirit, and they may have been sun worshippers.
Most Choctaws were forcibly removed from Mississippi to Oklahoma during the 1830s.
The Choctaws were known for their rapid incorporation of European modernity.
Discussions began on the issue of drafting and adopting a new constitution for the Choctaw people.
Choctaw scouts served under Washington, Morgan, Wayne and Sullivan."
In 1975, thirty-five year old David Gardner defeated Belvin to become the Choctaw Nation's second popularly elected chief.
Choctaws regularly traveled hundreds of miles from their homes for long periods of time.
The MOWA Choctaw Reservation is located on 300 acres in between the small southwestern Alabama communities of McIntosh, Mt.
My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth.
Nanih Waiya was a state park of Mississippi until the Mississippi Legislature State Bill 2803 officially returned control to Choctaws in 2006.
Persons who claim under this article shall not lose the privilege of a Choctaw citizen, but if they ever remove are not to be entitled to any portion of the Choctaw annuity.
Hernando de soto, leading his well-equipped Spanish fortune hunters, made contact with the Choctaws in the year 1540.
The Choctaw were no doubt a part of the Mississippian culture in the Mississippi River valley.
The return of the land was a grandiose political statement to the testament of Choctaw respect.
Under Gardner's term as chief, a tribal newspaper, Hello Choctaw was established.
The Mississippi Choctaw Indian Reservation has eight communities: Bogue Chitto, Bogue Homa, Conehatta, Crystal Ridge, Pearl River, Red Water, Tucker, and Standing Pine.
Ferguson states in "1775 The American Revolution began a period of new alignments for the Choctaws and other southern Indians.
When disputes arouse between Choctaw communities, stickball provided a "civilized" way to settle the issue.
By today's standards, it might be a million dollars" noted Judy Allen, editor of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's newspaper, Bishinik, based at the Oklahoma Choctaw tribal headquarters in Durant, Oklahoma.
In 1831, tens of thousands of Choctaw walked the 800km journey to Oklahoma and many died.
The treaty signed away the remaining traditional homeland of the Choctaw to the United States.
Choctaw women painted in white would adopt and name representatives of the former enemy as kin.
Oklahoma Choctaws comprise the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, established in the southeastern quadrant of the state.
the Choctaws anciently regarded the sun as a deity … the sun was ascribed the power of life and death.
The Choctaw now had the power to negotiate and contract their own services, and have the power to determine what services were in the best interest of their own people.
Ferguson states, "1903 MISS: Three-hundred Mississippi Choctaws were persuaded to remove to the Nation ."
The Choctaws, or Chahtas, are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States (Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana) of the Muskogean linguistic group.
In World War I, a group of Choctaws serving in the U.S. Army used their native language as a code.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians play stickball every year at the Choctaw Indian Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, with the game played on a modern day football field.
The Choctaw believed that their people came forth from the sacred mound of Nanih Waiya.
Along with the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Seminole, the Choctaw attempted to resurrect their traditional lifestyle and government in their new homeland.
The German army, which captured about one out of four messengers, never deciphered the messages written in Choctaw.
De Soto traveled up through Florida, and then down into the Alabama-Mississippi area that later was inhabited by the Choctaw.
In 1971, the Choctaw held their first popular election of a chief since Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907.
Choctaw migrated to the pine covered hills of what was then Catahoula Parish in Louisiana.
Regardless of the time frame, however, the homeland of the Choctaw or of the peoples from whom the Choctaw nation arose includes Nanih Waiya.
Previously a State Park, it has now been returned to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
Choctaw are remembered for their generosity in providing humanitarian relief during the Irish Potato Famine decades before the Red Cross was created.