Choctaw Chronology

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

Looking Back
LOOKING BACK over this chronology, it becomes apparent that the "Indian Program" at almost any given point in history reflects the social outlook of non-Indians at the same time and place. Thus, when foreign powers were splitting continent, the psychology was extended to set Indian against Indian. Later, a religious fervor sought to "save the savage". Then dog-eat-dog individualism begat a long period of efforts to de-tribe the Indians. In the 1930's an appreciation of variant cultures, bolstered by a depression-built dependancy, sent welfare to the tribes with a new emphasis on salvaging the native culture. Twelve years ago the field was again reversed and tribal "termination" began. At the present, with atomic power punctuating the smallness of the earth, with new nations blossoming in Africa and elsewhere, there is a growing feeling that Indians should have more voice in their own affairs. The Mississippi Choctaws, forgotten for a century, are emerging into the mainstream of the major culture at this precise time. They are balanced between past and future. That they are aware of their conditions and needs is evident in the following report which was drafted by the Mississippi Choctaws on May 15, 1961, as background for the previously cited "American Indian Chicago Conference". It was prepared in secret by the council and chairman and taken directly to the conference by Emmett York and Phillip Martin. It is presented here in full as a summary of tribal conditions and needs in 1961.

EDUCATION

Present Conditions

Present educational facilities and equipment are excellent. The seven day schools that are located adjacent to Indian reservations provide courses in elementary, junior high, and two years of high school, music drama, physical education, vocational training, and adult education. Library services are offered.

Most of those who complete the 10th grade are enrolled in federal boarding schools in Oklahoma and Kansas. Four or five of the graduating students are enrolled in the Meridian Municipal Junior College at Meridian each year. They should be commended for coming out of a total segregated situation and going into an integrated situation and adjusting themselves and doing outstanding work.

Indian students are accepted in most of the leading junior colleges, senior colleges and universities of the state. Schools located in an area where there is a concentration of Indian population will not accept Indian students.

Needs

The present educational program needs to be enlarged to include kindergarten school, last two years of high school, and standardized curriculum. More facilities are needed for an enlarged educational program. Competent and qualified instructors are needed who are not prejudiced race fanatics and segregationalists.

A well-equipped physical education department with a full-time instructor are needed. A well-equipped vocational training department and mote trades training opportunities are needed.

An enlarged adult educational program to include courses on family life, home management, citizenship training a cultivation, thrift and economy, savings and investments, farm management, farm accounting, farm marketing, stock raising, poultry, propagation of fruits for family use, landscaping and beautification of the home, preservation and conservation of wildlife, plant life and natural resources.

HOUSING

Most reservation housing is inadequate and unsuited for rearing families. Overcrowded conditions exist. Unsightly slum conditions prevail. Better and adequate housing is needed. Every possible assistance should be extended to the Indians for housing purposes. Long-term loans from some source should be considered.

HEALTH AND SANITATION

Present health facilities and services include clinical service, medical, and hospital care. Those needing surgery are cared for at the University Hospital located eighty miles away. A staff of four doctors, twelve nurses, and eight nurses' aides are employed to take care of the sick.

There is a field nurse and a doctor on duty. A full-time dentist and a technician are employed to take care of the Indians' dental needs. Those needing visual corrections are cared for. A laboratory technician is employed. Pharmaceutical services are provided. Better sanitary conditions are needed. Present sanitation program should be stepped up. Elimination of health hazards and eradication of and protection from insect pests and other germ-carrying insects and animals. Proper disposal of garbage and boy waste materials is needed. Standard drinking facilities meeting state health standards should be observed at all public places.

The present 35 bed hospital should be increased to 50 bed capacity. Permanent and resident physician is preferred.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Present Problems

Family life on the reservations is in a deplorable state. Excessive drinking and drunkenness, common-law marriages, illegitimacy, and gross sex immoralities prevail.

General state of unrest and discontent prevail. Jealousies, distrust, bitterness, and resentments are common. Delinquencies of every kind and prevalent. Most Choctaw are critical of the present policies of the administration of their affairs at the local level. The leasing program is the source of much of the misunderstanding a indifference.

Many of the aged Indian citizens are not properly cared for. Many of them are forgotten and left to spend the remainder of their days on earth in hovels of filth and squalid conditions. Physically and mentally handicapped children are neglected.

Children with visual difficulties and minor physical deformities are grossly neglected and mistreated by normal-bodied children.

School authorities and some teachers are neglectful of their duties of seeing that children are properly cared for.

Suggestions of solutions

Family studies and programs should be conducted. Parents of children should be invited to participate in the community program designed for the families. Alcohol studies and an effective rehabilitation program should be conducted for all alcoholics.

Such state of unrest and discontent and tension are attributed to a general lack of formal education, moral training and spiritual enlightenment. Mental and emotional immaturities may be attributed mostly to lack of education and moral principles. The lack of enlightened and effective native leadership and possibly maladministration of the agency administrative personnel may share the blame for this situation in human relations.

Some united and concerted effort must be made to bring all the factions to mutual understanding and goodwill and all rally together in a common bond of peace and unity and cooperation for the welfare and happiness of every Choctaw. The car of the aged, homeless orphans, and helpless persons should have priority considerations.

Every federal employee and Choctaw citizen should be made aware of these physically handicapped persons and see that they are treated kindly and loved.

LAND PROGRAM

Present Problems

There is definitely an unsatisfactory land leasing program. Many of the Indians are delinquent in their payment on their leases. This is due primarily to ineffective native leadership, misunderstanding, etc.

More than half, possibly two-thirds, of the total Choctaw population live off and away from the seven reservations. Inadequate acreage of tillable and producible lands on the reservations accounts for majority of them engaging in share-cropping.

Suggestions of solutions

If present land program has been proven unsatisfactory, then a more satisfactory one should be instituted. Every Indian lessor should be helped to understand that he has very little to lose and much to gain and that they are expected to help conduct and orderly land program.

Greater use and care of the land should be emphasized.

More land is needed. Those who need financial aid for farming purposes or stock-raising should be extended this help. They should be given every available information on farm management.

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

Present Problems

The Choctaws probably occupy the lowest rung of the economic ladder than all other racial groups in the area. They live on low subsistence basis due to lack of equal opportunities for employment other racial groups in the area. They live on low subsistence basis due to lack of equal opportunities for employment other groups enjoy. The income of an average family is approximately $600.00 yearly while only a few enjoy a yearly income of approximately $2,000.00.

The Choctaws inability in understanding and following work instructions are probably the main reasons.

Only a few Choctaws are skilled workers. A few are heavy road equipment operators.

Possible Solutions

Most Choctaws are farm laborers. The average wage for a farm-laborer is approximately $2.50 per day which is ordinarily from sun-up to sun-down or twelve hours. There are two farm work seasons: namely, cotton-chopping and cotton-picking. If a farm-laborer can get eighty working days from each season, he can earn $400.00 in wages for the entire summer's work. Unless he engages in some other type of farm work, he is confronted with hunger and want of the necessities of life during the worst seasons of the year.

Steady employment, better economic opportunities, and opportunities for promotions are needed to improve economic situation of the Choctaw family.

INDUSTRIES

Present Conditions

Farming, stock raising, poultry, and pulpwood and lumber industries are the only sources of income. Choctaws are not considered for employment.

Possible Solutions

It is the consensus that there is a need for an industrial development in areas convenient for the employment of Choctaws. More Choctaws should be considered for jobs in the local industries.

ADMINISTRATION

Present Conditions

The administrative policies are strongly opposed by Indian leaders. The most commonly known objections are as follows:

• (1) Solicitation, employment, and termination. Only local Whites are considered for employment at the agency and in the schools. Practically all Whites are race fanatics and segregationists, i.e., all local Whites. Those who are employed are not fully qualified for the positions they have been appointed. The services of those who are sympathetic to the Indians' general welfare are not desired and are terminated.
• (2) Partiality and favoritism are shown to Indians. Some Indians are puppets of certain agency personnel.
• (3) Racial segregation policies are practiced in the federal government operated and supported institutions.

Possible Solutions

Before any appointment is completed, each should be made subject to study and approval of the Choctaw Tribal Council, especially, in the appointment of the superintendent.

When a superintendent, any agency personnel, or any Indian Service employee is charged with maladministration, habitual neglect or indifference toward the general welfare of the Indians, or any violations of the Constitution of the United States with respect to civil rights this should be reported formally by the Choctaw Tribal Council and recommendation made that an investigation be made of the person or persons so accused. Upon being found guilty as charged, he/she to be given the option of transferring to another location or resign upon request.

Racial segregation should not be permitted in federal institutions.

The New Testament. (Pin Chitokaka Pi Okchalinchi Chisas Klaist in Testament Himona, Chahta Anumpa Atoshowa Hoke.) American Bible Society, Instituted in the year 1816, New York. (P) DURANT, A.R. Nanalhpisa Noshkobo. (Laws of the Choctaw Nation in Choctaw, with the treaties of 1837, 1855, 1865, and 1866). John F. Worley, printer, Dallas, Texas, 1894. (P)

PILLING, JAMES CONSTANTINE. Bibliography of the Muskhogean Languages. Bureau of Ethnology. Bulletin 9, 1889. (Indicates that more tracts, etc... were printed in Choctaw than in any other Muskhogean language.) (V)

BOAZ, FRANZ. Handbook of American Indian Languages. Bureau of Ethnology. Bulletin 40, part 1, 1911. (Introduction to linguistic method. Imparts perspective to study of unwritten languages.) (V)

* * * * * * (V) Indicates copy seen at Vanderbilt University Library, Nashville. (T)Indicates copy seen at Tennessee State Library, Nashville. (P) Indicates copy in author's possession.

Following are the sources of the quotations used at each chapter heading:

Part 1: An elderly Mississippi Choctaw, speaking in 1957 and recorded on tape. Part 2: An Iroquois spokesman, speaking in the 1750's. Part 3: At the treaty of Doak's Stand. Part 4: Statement made by a Choctaw during removal. Part 5: Portion of the "Creed" printed in the "Declaration of Indian Purpose" 1961.

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Social and Ceramonial SWANTON, JOHN R. Soutce Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 103, 1931. (V)

BUSHNELL, DAVID I., JR. The Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb St. Tammany Parish Louisiana. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 48, 1909. (V)

WILLIAMS, SAMUEL COLE. Adair's History of the American Indians. The Watauga Press, Johnson City, Tennessee, 1903. (V) (T)

(See bibliography in Bulletin 103, BAE, for a comprehensive list.)

History PEITHMANN, IRVIN M. The Choctaw Indians of Mississippi. Southern Illinois University, 1961. (P)

HAGAN, WILLIAM T. American Indians. The University of Chicago Press, 1961. (P)

SERRANO Y SANZ, MANUEL. Espana y los Indios Cherokis y Chactas en la Sequanda mitad del siglo XVIII. (V)

COTTERILL, R.S. The Southern Indians. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1954. (P)

FOREMAN, GRANT. Indian Removal. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1956. (P)

DEBO, ANGIE. The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1961. (P)

NASH, CHARLES H. and OSOINACH, KIRKLAND. Pasfalaya. Chucalissa Indian Town, Memphis, Tennessee, Undated. (P)

AMERICAN INDIAN CHICAGO CONFERENCE. Declaration of Indian Purpose. The University of Chicago, 1961. (P)

(See also the Tennessee State Library for much reference material.)

Language BYINGTON, CYRUS. A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 46, 1915. (P)

WATKINS, BEN. Complete Choctaw Definer. J.W. Baldwin Printer & Publisher, Van Buren, Arkansas, 1892. (P)

The original chronology ended here. Updated 1997 with the assistance of Leigh Marshall

Choctaw Chronology was written by the late Bob Ferguson, the former director of the Choctaw Musuem of the Southern Indian.

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