Choctaw

Early Times

According to traditional Choctaw beliefs, the Choctaws originated in the great Mother Mound, Nanih Waiya, long ago in the distant past. Nanih Waiya is located in Winston County, Mississippi, and is still revered by many Choctaw people.

Choctaw people were always matrilineal; that is, they viewed themselves as all descended from one female ancestor. Every person was born into the clan of his or her mother, and this identity formed the basis of all relationships. Like other Indigenous Peoples, the Choctaws believed that they were an integral part of creation and that all the animals, trees, rocks, water, sun, and fire had spirits to whom they were bound in [Page 292]reciprocal relationships. They believed that serenity and peace were obtained through maintaining a state of harmony and balance among all things, which was articulated through a very complex belief system that included religious observations, laws, mores, and rituals. Choctaw people highly valued generosity. The more a person could give away, the more he or she was esteemed. No one accumulated individual wealth; it was simply unthinkable. Thus, all Choctaws shared feast and famine, with no class divisions based on wealth.

The first White men seen by the Choctaws were from the De Soto expedition, around 1540. Hernando De Soto was a Spanish adventurer who came to the Western Hemisphere to search for gold. He and his men rampaged through the South, killing, enslaving, and raping residents until they were ultimately driven out of the region and back to their ships. Many scholars believe that the Spanish introduced diseases that ravaged indigenous populations, killing thousands of people and severely weakening their social and political institutions.

In the early 1700s, the Choctaws, like other Native peoples, became involved in the political and martial intrigues of Spain, England, and France in North America. Throughout the century, the Choctaws allied themselves primarily with France, but they never hesitated to play one European power off against another. Choctaw hunters traded animal hides and furs for manufactured goods, particularly knives, hatchets, guns, lead, powder, pots, and kettles.

The Choctaws fought for many years against Chickasaws, who repeatedly invaded their territory to kidnap women and children for sale to British slave traders in Charleston. Hundreds of Choctaws were sold into slavery in the Caribbean, living brief, brutal lives with no hope of escape. In their quest for hegemony in North America, the French and British encouraged and sponsored almost continual warfare between their indigenous allies. The French and Indian War finally ended this strife, but it also left the Choctaws without allies against the British and American colonists.

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