Choctaw Chronology

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

Part III - 1800-1830
This thirty-year period was a time of dramatic change for the Choctaws. They were hard-pressed by white settlers who coveted their land. The government, divided in its purpose, set up funds to civilize the Indians and at the same time pressed for their removal west. If the government was confused, the Choctaws were more so. Striving to indicate their desire to stay at home and become "civilized", the Choctaws exchanged ancient customs for the "new way". They started a school system which quickly rooted and grew strong. But their desparate actions could no stem the white tide. A series of treaties stripped away their domain. Missionaries, who honestly believed the Choctaws would be better off away from white contact, joined in removal efforts with states that simply wanted the Indians out of the way. Bitter debated raged in Congress over Andrew Jackson's removal bill. At a little creek called "Dancing Rabbit" the Choctaw Nation East was signed out of existence.

1800 Earth burial replaced scaffold burial. The new rites were described as follows in the Missionary Herald, December 1828: "When a Choctaw dies, his friends set up a number of poles around the grave, on which they hang hoops, wreaths, etc.....Around these poles the survivors of the family gather each day at sunrise, noon and sunset, and there prostrating themselves and uttering convulsive cries, mourn for the deceased. This is continued during 30 or 40 days: Then all the neighboring people assemble, the poles are pulled up and the mourning is ended with feasting, drinking and great disorder."

1801 Fort Adams Treaty. The Choctaws ceded the southwestern corner of their land. The U.S. secured the right to construct a road through Choctaw country from Natchez to Nashville, Tennessee. Said the Chiefs to the Commissioners: "We came here (to the council) sober. We wish to go away so -- we, therefore, request that the strong drink, which we understand our brothers have brought here, may not be disturbed."

1802 Fort Confederation Treaty. The Choctaw eastern boundary was marked and the Choctaws ceded a tract north of Mobile.

The United States government established a Choctaw trading house at St. Stephens on the site of the old French fort Tombecbe.

1803 Louisiana Territory was transferred to the United States, ending rivalry of foreign powers within the Choctaw nation. President Thomas Jefferson suggested to Congress that Indians be moved west of the Mississippi.

1804 An act organizing the Louisiana Territory was passed. It included a provision for giving western lands to Indians for their eastern domains.

1805 Mount Dexter Treaty. The Choctaws ceded the remaining strip of their southern territory. The tribe received and annuity of $3,000. Forty-eight thousand dollars was appropriated for paying debts owed by the Indians to white traders. Chiefs Apukshunnubbee, Pushmataha and Moshulatubbee were granted salaries of $150 per year plus $500 for their service to the nation. George Gaines of Gallatin, Tennessee arrived to become the United States factor at St. Stephens.

1811 Tecumseh visited the Choctaws, urging Indian Confederation. Pushmataha persuaded his people not to arouse the enmity of a stronger and more numerous people. Unsuccessful, Tecumseh left for the Creek nation.

1812 Further affirming his allegiance to the United States, Pushmataha led several hundred warriors with Jackson at the Battles of New Orleans and Horseshoe Bend. This year the Choctaws abolished the law of "blood" revenge (by which a relative of a murdered person could exact vengeance on any member of the murderer's family) in favor of punishing only the guilty party.

1813 December: Pushmataha, Mushlatubbee, Edmund Folsom, and John Pitchlynn led a contingent of 131 Choctaw warriors at the Battle of Holy Ground, a disastrous defeat for the Creeks.

1816 The Choctaw lands east of the Tombigbee (itombi ikbi - box maker) were ceded to the United States.

1817 Choctaw and Creek land cessions paved the way for Mississippi to become a state.

1818 Cyrus Kingsbury, at Choctaw request, established a mission at Eliot, on the Yalobusha River for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

1819 Kingsbury asked the Choctaw council for assistance. He received the $3,000 tribal annuities plus $1,800 and some livestock.

March 26: The missionaries organized themselves into the first church in the Choctaw Nation.

April 19: The first Choctaw school at Eliot Mission officially commenced.

1820 Seven more missionaries arrived, including Calvin Cushman (whose son wrote an important book on the Choctaws), and Cyrus Byington who later prepared grammars, dictionaries and portions of the Bible in Choctaw.

1821 Kingsbury opened new missions at Mayhew and Pidgeon Roost.

1822 Chief Aboha Kullo Humma announced that his district had a law by which all liquor brought into the country was to be destroyed. The Chief also said that parents who should murder their infants, cattle and hog thieves, and parents who should abandon their homes, would be punished with thirty-nine lashes.

November: Another mission was established at Bethel.

1824 Several Chiefs journeyed to Washington to try to rectify problems in the 1820 treaty. Apukshunnubbee fell from a cliff in Kentucky. The others went onto Washington. Pushmataha, mortally ill with a throat infection said, on December 24: "I shall die, but you will return to our brethren. As you go along the paths, you will see the flowers and hear the birds sing; but Pushmataha will see them and hear them no more. When you shall come to your home, they will ask you, 'Where is Pushmataha?' And you will tell them, 'He is no more'. Pushmataha was buried on Christmas Day in Washington, D.C. A grand procession of 2,000 people followed his casket down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Congressional Cemetery. The big guns were fired. Dr. Gideon Lincecum, an old neighbor to "Push" said: "I always looked upon him as possessing the strongest and best balanced intellect of any man I ever heard speak."

1825 The Choctaws arranged with Colonel Richard Johnson to open an academy for boys in Kentucky. It was supported enthusiastically until 1841 when it was abolished in favor of a school in the Choctaw Nation in what is now Oklahoma.

A school opened in the Aikhummah community.

1826 A code of written laws was adopted by the Choctaws. Among other things, liquor was outlawed for the entire nation, and Chiefs were to be selected.

1827 Choctaws again refused to move: "It always gives us pain to disagree to a friend's talk."

1828 In a great revival movement many Choctaws joined the church.

1829 A Choctaw national law was passed giving a person accused of witchcraft the benefit of a trial. A school opened in the Yoknolechaya community.

1830 A school opened at Hikashubaha.

Eleven schools, 29 teachers, 260 students in the Choctaw nation. Eighty-nine boys in the Kentucky Choctaw Academy.

Continued