Tribal Homelands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Monica N. Griffis Southeastern Oklahoma State University

Tribal Homelands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw This paper describes the primary geographic characteristics of the ancestral homelands of the indigenous Chickasaw and Choctaw people in North America, prior to first contact with European nations and continuing into the settlement timeframe of early colonists. These homelands originally included a significant portion of Louisiana and Mississippi, although the most closely held region was near the ancestral Nanih Waiya mound, which according to oral traditions held the origins of these tribal people. Prior to the surge of Western settlement, Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes were similar to other Native American nations in occupying the expanse of their territory not by personal land ownership, but instead through a series of communal villages governed by cultural leaders. Their occupation of the land was driven by natural resources and trade routes, and the prime positioning of these homelands proved to be too valuable to escape aggressive dispossession by colonial settlement. Early Chickasaw and Choctaw homelands occupied a large territory east of the Mississippi River in an extremely favorable location, especially related to waterways, trade routes, fertile land, and climate conditions. According to the research of St. Jean (2003), the centralized location of these tribes was advantageous, due to the relative proximity of four waterways which bordered all sides of the territory – the Mississippi, Ohio, Octibea, and Tennessee Rivers. The author noted that both the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers served as vital trade and exchange routes for thousands of years, resulting in continued contact with tribes from remote locations. In addition to commanding these advantageous water routes, the Chickasaw and Choctaw homelands were also centrally situated at an important intersection of land based pathways for trade, a factor which became even more important as colonial settlements were established by Europeans on the East Coast. Complementing this ideal location, the coastal plains area of the early Chickasaw and Choctaw people encompassed a favorable mix of low elevation, fertile lands, and prairie grasslands, along with heavily forested areas of pine, oak, and hardwood which provided excellent habitat for game (Voss & Blitz, 1988). The large number of rivers and tributaries provided water sources to feed these natural grass and forest areas. The authors noted other favorable conditions including low to moderate elevation, temperate climate without extreme high or low temperatures, and strong average rainfall, resulting in a long growing season with warm and moist conditions for the majority of each year. As noted by St. Jean (2003), another advantage afforded by the Chickasaw and Choctaw location was the relatively contiguous and flat area they inhabited, which promoted communication between villages and communities. These settlements were not subject to natural barriers like mountains or rivers, as was the case with other tribes. This geographic component was important as it pertained to alliances and coordination among the people, which various researchers attributed to the unique ability of these tribal leaders to avoid dissolution and even dispossession longer than many of their contemporaries. It is well researched and documented that Native tribes in North America typically established a number of villages and dwellings across wide expanses of territory, emphasizing historical hunting grounds and access to natural resources. Arrangement of Chickasaw and Choctaw tribal communities remained focused on proximity to the Nanih Waiya mound which featured significantly in cultural traditions. According to Choctaw legend: “Emerging from Nanih Waiya last were the Choctaws who sunned themselves until dry and then settled around the mount – their ‘Great Mother’ who told them that if ever they left her side, they would die” (Gildart, 1996, p. 44). Other legends told the Choctaw people that they would always prosper as long as they remained close to the mound, an indicator that the tribal base remained in this area as these people were drawn to their historical origins passed down through oral traditions. From the perspective of land ownership, the Chickasaw and Choctaw cultural traditions provided the fundamental basis for their territorial location. As a matrilineal culture, property ownership was tied to organization and distribution of matrilineal clans (Voss & Blitz, 1988). Various villages and communities were organized into chiefdoms based on lineage, which provided the centers for political, social, and cultural activities of the people. Later treaties with the United States government tended to be based on a more Western viewpoint of individual ownership, as the federal push toward private settlement was in full force. While this was not the historical viewpoint of Native tribes, tribal leaders realized the necessity of agreeing to treaty-based land ownership as a way to ensure the security of their people in the midst of white settlement. According to Kilpinen (2004), the Chickasaw and Choctaw people had a great deal of early contact with white settlers and attempted to acclimate to white culture for economic means and as a tactic of diplomacy with intent to remain in their ancestral homelands. Over an extended period, portions of Choctaw lands were relinquished in exchange for federal guarantees to preserve remaining lands. This became a perpetual cycle of dispossession, although Choctaw and Chickasaw leadership refused to give up rights to Mississippi land in the early 1800’s and held firm to their belief in protections provided by prior treaties (Kilpinen, 2004). Their eventual move west of the Mississippi, though not desirable, was not as far removed as those who went to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. By mid to late 1800’s, however, the basic viewpoint of land ownership became based on a series of treaty arrangements out of necessity, even though the Western push to define territory and establish boundaries was an extremely foreign concept to tribal nations and did not fit their understanding of sovereignty. Many conflicts between Native tribes and Western settlers were the result of basic differences in how the two cultures viewed land ownership and who had rights over land use. The research of Geisler (2014) provided a basis for the concept of “ownership society” as a compelling factor in explaining the differences between European and indigenous viewpoints on how land or territory is possessed by an individual or group (p. 61). This concept was definitely contrary to Chickasaw and Choctaw understanding of sovereignty, as their homelands were tied to cultural sites and access to natural resources required for subsistence. This was a common view for Native tribes, who had historically utilized and governed sizeable areas of land. Alternately, the Western criteria for land rights was defined by a specific amount of property which could reasonably be settled or cultivated, initiated by a land purchase transaction and assignment of a deed, typically to an individual (Geisler, 2014). The evolution away from indigenous understanding of their claims to aboriginal lands meant an eventual move to wide-scale implementation of European standards for property rights. The ownership society became the dominant method for assigning property, which resulted in policies, treaties, and maps based primarily on the European model. As Barr and other researchers have shown, the concept of Indian sovereignty relating to geographic territory is tied to a culturally-based understanding of how their aboriginal homelands were governed and defended, which varied quite drastically when compared to European ideas of private ownership and settlement (Sleeper-Smith, 2015). The Chickasaw and Choctaw people occupied a prime location in colonial North America, based on favorable geographical traits and access to water and land based trade routes. Their connection to the area was founded on strong cultural beliefs that this homeland held the origination of their people and the land would continue to provide prosperity as long as they remained there. Although early diplomacy with Europeans was aimed at establishing strategic trade agreements and retaining sovereignty, the eventual progression of indigenous lands into a Western model of private ownership reduced the Chickasaw and Choctaw territory. The series of treaties and legal decisions instituted by the federal government resulted in dispossession of historical lands in Mississippi and removal of many tribal people to Oklahoma, although the Chickasaw and Choctaw people still retain a strong cultural tie to the Nanih Waiya mound as the genesis of their culture. Even though the land base of Native tribes has been eroded by Western settlement, cultural connections to historic homelands still remains a cornerstone of tribal views on sovereignty.

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