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Excerpt from Papers Relating to the Claims of the Choctaw Nation Against the United States, Arising Under the Treaty of 1830 We have arrived at a critical point in our history, and much depends upon the course which the government shall now adopt towards us. We have struggled hard to regenerate and elevate ourselves in the scale of civilization. Every dollar that we could spare, and every instrumentality in our power, has been made use of to diffuse the blessings of education among our people, and to improve their moral and physical condition. But our means and resources are too scanty to accomplish but a little of what we desire. Our progress is too slow, and we are almost disheartened; but let our affairs with the government be properly and kindly adjusted - let only simple justice be done to us in the matter which we now submit for your consideration - and we believe a new and brighter day will soon dawn upon us; that the dark clouds which have so long obscured our future will pass away, and the sunlight of hope will gladden our hearts, exciting and encouraging us to renewed efforts and still nobler aims. We regard with deep interest the plan which has been brought forward by a member of the Senate, whom we love and honor as a kind, disinterested, and zealous friend of our unfortunate race, for placing ourselves and the other tribes in our vicinity in a position of political equality with our white brethren. It is one that we are anxious to occupy; but our present resources are too restricted and limited, we fear, to justify us in assuming it. Let us but have the means of giving a new, stronger, and wider impulse to the cause of education among our people, and to aid us in defraying the greater expense of a more elevated position and form of government, and we shall be proud to assume them. We believe a just and fair settlement with us by the government would give us means to a sufficient extent to justify us in assuming the new and more elevated position so kindly proposed to be held out to us. And we realize the necessity of some such change. We cannot remain long as we are. We must rapidly become a regenerated and enlightened people, and place ourselves as nearly as possible in a situation of equality with our white brethren, or we shall be overcome and destroyed by the mighty wave of population and civilization which is rapidly spreading and rolling onward with accumulated and resistless force towards the remotest confines of this great country, and which has already engulphed such myriads of our race. We believe, honored sir, that our destiny is, in a measure, in your hands. If you will consent to interfere and cause justice and liberality to be extended towards us, we shall feel ourselves safe. We will endeavor to profit wisely and discreetly by the results of such kindness, whatever they may be, to vindicate and ennoble the wisdom and magnanimity which dictated your friendly interference in our affairs, and so to preserve and manifest our deep sense of obligations towards you that your name may descend with reverence and blessings to the generations that are to come after us. We now beg leave to place in your hands our written memorial and documents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Includes index. The Choctaw Nation one of the largest and most prosperous Tribes east of the Mississippi River was the first Tribe to be removed eventually to Oklahoma.
The Choctaws in Oklahoma begins with the Choctaws' removal from Mississippi to Indian Territory in the 1830s and then traces the history of the tribe's subsequent efforts to retain and expand its rights and to reassert tribal sovereignty in the late twentieth century. This book illustrates the Choctaws' remarkable success in asserting their sovereignty and establishing a national identity in the face of seemingly insurmountable legal obstacles.
Blending an engaging narrative style with broader theoretical considerations, James Taylor Carson offers the most complete history to date of the Mississippi Choctaws. Tracing the Choctaws from their origins in the Mississippian cultures of late prehistory to the early nineteenth century, Carson shows how the Choctaws struggled to adapt to life in a New World altered radically by contact while retaining their sense of identity and place. Despite changes in subsistence practices and material culture, the Choctaws made every effort to retain certain core cultural beliefs and sensibilities, a strategy they conceived of as following ?the straight bright path.? This work also makes a significant theoretical contribution to ethnohistory as Carson confronts common problems in the historical analysis of Native peoples.
