The Beginning
Several hundred years
ago in a land to the west of us, Chocta, we are told, became in
his youth the leader of the people who have ever since borne his name.
This youth and his people lived close to the bosom of mother earth, and
were free children of wild nature. They were then as a race in their youth,
full of endurance, courage and daring. Prompted by youth’s ambition, they
faced the east and traveled toward the rising sun in quest of a new home,
when, in the course of their wanderings, they reached what is now the State
of Mississippi, the Great Spirit bade them stop; for they had found the
happy hunting ground for which they were in search.
In time there arrived explorers from several
countries of Europe, which countries at once laid claim to their forests
and rivers, and soon began to found colonies in their midst. The forests
were deep and the prairies wide. Wild nature was lavish in her supply;
there was room and abundance for all. When one race suffered because of
scarcity the other divided with them their fuller supply. Thus the
white man and the red man lived together in peace, so much so that in after
years both races could boast ‘that they had never taken up arms the one
against the other.
But a separation of the two races was inevitable.
They represented two entirely distinct species of mankind. With the Choctaw,
wild nature was his parent and master, affording him sustenance, recreation
and happiness, furnishing him his all; with the white man, wild nature
was his servant, furnishing him only a medium for improvement. The Choctaw
loved the forest, the white man loved the field. Conditions necessary for
contentment and happiness for the one brought dissatisfaction and misery
to the other.
Thus unintentionally there arose between the
two races a contest for supremacy. In this contest the Choctaw for a time
had the advantage, but the white man was the more aggressive, and the Choctaw
was forced to give way. The United States Government began as early
as November, 1805, to make treaties with the Choctaws looking forward to
the ultimate acquisition of their territory. This movement culminated
in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, signed, September 27, 1830,
the terms of which provided for the removal of the Choctaws to the west
of the Mississippi river to their reservation in what is now known as the
Indian Territory.
That the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
was the result of false representations and bribery on the part of the
agents of the United States Government and deceit on the part of certain
of the Choctaw chiefs is generally conceded. Many of the Choctaws
did not want to give up the happy hunting grounds of their fathers, and
shrewd diplomacy was necessary to secure their ratification of the treaty.
A supplemental treaty had to be made with them the next day, September
28; but probably the one thing most conducive in securing the ratification
of this final agreement by the Choctaws finds expression in the 14th article
of this instrument. The 14th article of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit
Creek is as follows:
“Each Choctaw head of a family being desirous to remain and
become a citizen of the States, shall be permitted to do so, by signifying
his intention to the agent within six months from the ratification of this
Treaty, and he or she shall thereupon be entitled to a reservation of one
section of six hundred and forty acres of land, to be bounded by sectional
lines of survey; in like manner shall be entitled to one-half that quantity
for each unmarried child which is living with him over ten years of age;
and a quarter section to such child as may be under ten years of age, to
adjoin the location of the parent. If they reside upon said lands intending
to become citizens of the States for five years after the ratification
of this treaty, in that case a grant in fee simple shall issue; said reservation
shall include the present improvement, of the head of the family, or a
portion of it. 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.”
This 14th article furnishes the basis of what
has ever since been known as the Choctaw claims. These claims have been
the source of much speculation and infamous land frauds, and have developed
by Acts of Congress in recent years into what is known in legislation applicable
to the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Indian Territory as the “Rights of
Mississippi Choctaws." Only an incidental reference will be made
to the Choctaw claims in passing to a discussion of the “Rights of the
Mississippi Choctaws,” a consideration of which together with the removal
of the Mississippi Choctaws by virtue of these rights is the purpose of
this narrative.
While the Choctaws, as we may believe, in the
physical vigor of their youth, full of courage and hope, had journeyed
a long distance to their new home, yet in the year 1830, when they began
their march to the West, it was in every part a slow and tardy movement.
It was not until they were threatened with force that they ever began to
move, and they had to be encouraged all the time. It must have seemed to
them, facing the West, and traveling toward the setting sun, that their
race had turned the meridian of life, and was traveling toward its close.
However it may have seemed to them, such has
been the case; and while the remaining remnant of our natives have been
carried to the West to join their ill-fated brothers who had gone years
before in order that they might share together a handsome fortune given
by the United States Government in lieu of what had been taken from their
race, yet that fortune is not calculated to do them much good. It is not
fertile fields nor handsome houses that these children of nature want or
need, but rather the freedom of wide woods, where they live at ease in
their wretched wigwams, satisfied without exertion.
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Copyright 2001 - All Rights
Reserved
Ellen
Pack