Choctaw Chronology

Part I | Part II | Part IIII | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII

Part II - 1700-1800
Early in the century the French built trading posts along the Mississippi and its tributaries. One such was French Lick, now Nashville, Tennessee. French governors solicited Choctaw favor by distributing gifts and by honoring chiefs. English traders wooed and won the Chickasaw. French and English agents set the two tribes against each other in an intermittent war that continued until the French left the south.

1702 Choctaws and Chickasaws make peace.

1704 Choctaw-Chickasaw war resume.

1705 Choctaw nation invaded by a combined Creek-Chickasaw force.

1708 Choctaws make peace with Chickasaws.

1711 Choctaw-Chickasaw war resume.

1715 Pro-British, Comchak Emike "most distinguished man of the Choctaws", murdered at the instigation of French governor Bienville.

1723 Choctaws and Chickasaws make peace.

Since 1690 about five hundred Choctaws had been sold as slaves.

1726 A Catholic mission established in the Six Towns district.

1727 Father Mathurin le Petit established a Catholic mission at Yazoo. Neither of the missions prospered. One native "convert" returned to the mission to be debaptized. He said the white man's magic was ruining his deer hunting skill. He was promptly debaptized and is said to have regained his good aim.

1729 Regis du Roullet, a Frenchman, visited the Choctaws in company with two Chickasaw chiefs. Mats were spread for them. The Choctaw chief approached "singing the calumet" or peace song. An honored man brought a peace pipe and a torch. After smoking to peace, three honored men carried du Roullet to the council grounds for a feast.

Michael Beaudouin succeeded Le Petit and established a mission near the southern village of Chickasawhay.

1730 De Lusser visited the Choctaws to incite them to fight the Natchez (and hereby touched off another Chickasaw-Choctaw war). He describes a dance which followed the speaking and feasting: "The dance of the men having come to an end, that of the women began. They (the men) were all armed and daubed with paint, with headdresses of eagle feathers. They danced the dance of the Amediches (Nabedache, a Caddo tribe) who are Indians in the direction of Mexico, which a slave of that nation who is at the house of the great chief taught this nation. This is the finest of all the Indian dances. They performed it very well. Moreover, they are the best dressed and the neatest of all the Choctaw women I have seen."

1736 Choctaw-Chickasaw war raging furiously. In a battle that took place this year, it is said that the Chickasaws fought under an English flag, and that Indian allies of the French came from as far north as Canada to assist the Choctaws and established Fort Tombecbe on the Tombigbee River.

1739 Matters compounded as English incite Creeks to join in the battle against the Choctaws.

1741 End of Creek-Choctaw war.

1744 Attempts by Chief Shulush Homma (Red Shoes) to settle Choctaw-Chickasaw difficulties thwarted by French governor, Vaudreuil.

1746 Englishman James Adair began to trade in the Eastern district of Choctaw territory.

1748 Beginning of a Choctaw civil war. It started when a division of the tribe, encouraged by Adair and other English traders, sided with the English. In an effort to end the internecine struggle, the tribe killed Shulush Homma. But his brother renewed the war.

1750 End of the Choctaw civil war. The French party defeated the British party in September. A new treaty was executed which bound the Choctaws and French. The Chickasaws endeavored to make peace at this time also, but Vaudreuil, adamant in his demand that the Chickasaws be exterminated, refused.

1752 The Chickasaws renewed their attacks on French settlements.

1753 Kerleric replaced Vaudreuil as French governor. He wrote of the Choctaws: "It seems to me that they are true to their plighted faith. They are men who reflect, and who have more logic and precision in their reasoning than it is commonly thought."

1754 Start of French and Indian war. Kerleric, unable to supply the Choctaws with sufficient trade goods, revised his opinion of them: "I am sufficiently acquainted with the Choctaws to know that they are covetous, lying, and treacherous. So that I keep on my guard without showing it."

1755 An anonymous Frenchman, traveling in Choctaw country, recorded his observations which may be found in Volume V, Part 2, of the Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association.

1763 End of French and Indian war. The Peace of Paris. Without their knowledge or consent, the Choctaws became a part of the British Empire. Several Choctaw chiefs attended a conference in Augusta, Georgia, called by British officials. Creeks, Cherokees and Chickasaws also attended. The Six Towns Choctaws transferred their loyalty from France to Spain - largely because the Spanish could supply them better than could the English.

1765 March 26, Mobile. The British governor, Johnstone, made a treaty with the Choctaws - defining their eastern boundary. At the treaty meeting, the Choctaws were attacked by Creeks. Ten Choctaws were killed and several captured. A Creek-Choctaw war ensued which lasted for six years.

1770 Bernard Romans trekked through Choctaw country. He published a narrative of the trip in 1775.

1774 About this time, Adair, the English trader, left the Chickasaws. He published a book which contained the following discussion of why the Choctaws were called "long hairs": "Because the Choktah did not till lately trim their hair, the other tribes through contempt of their custom, called them Pansh Falaiah, 'long hair', and they in return gave them the contemptuous name, Skoobale shto, very naked, or 'bare heads'....the same word, or Waksishto, with Hassi prefixed, expresses the penem proeputio detecto....and Panshi Falaia abi is the proper name of a warrior who killed an enemy wearing long hair. It is a triple compound from Panshi, 'the hair of one's head', Falaia 'long', and Abi, 'killing', which they crowd together.

1775 The American Revolution began a period of new alignments for the Choctaws and other southern Indians. Choctaw scouts served under Washington, Morgan, Wayne and Sullivan.

1777 A conference in Mobile with Stuart, British Indian agent, was attended by Choctaws and Chickasaws. Both allied with England.

The Choctaws sold a part of their territory along the Mississippi River to the English.

1783 End of American Revolution. Franchimastabe, Choctaw head chief, went to Savannah, Georgia to secure American trade. While he was absent the Choctaws at home met and signed a treaty with the Spanish at Mobile.

1785 Choctaws, dissatisfied with Spanish trade goods, were sent by Franchimastabe to meet Americans at Hopewell, on the Keowee. At the meeting the Choctaws acknowledged American sovereignty and trade control.

1786 March 25. Joseph Martin wrote the Virginia governor that Spanish influence was increasing among the Choctaws.

The Choctaw leaders signed the treaty of Hopewell with the new United States government placing themselves under its protection.

1787 Colonel Arthur Campbell, Virginia's agent to the Indians, endorsed a Choctaw request for a trading post near Muscle Shoals.

1792 One hundred and ten Choctaws and many Chickasaws journeyed to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference with American officials.

1793 The Spanish influence was at its zenith among southern Indians. Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Chickasaws met the Spaniards at Los Nogales on October 28. Franchimastabe led the Choctaw delegation. The four nations signed the Treaty of Fort Nogales, a defensive and offensive treaty with Spain.

May 10: A treaty was signed at Boucfouca that ceded several Choctaw areas on the Tombigbee River where the Spanish built Fort Confederation and established a trading post.

1794 A contingent of Choctaws scouted for General Anthony Wayne against the Northwest Indians at Fallen Timbers.

1796 Start of the American government factory system. It was an attempt to displace English and Spanish traders, by bringing to the Indians trade goods at cost.

1797 The Spaniards still held the Choctaw trade.

1798 April 7: Congress created the Territory of Mississippi.

Continued