ABSTRACT
Like the Cherokees, the Choctaws were a southeastern tribe pressured into removing to west of the Mississippi. In the winter of 1831–32, the majority of Choctaws reluctantly relocated to the new Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory. A small group of Choctaws chose to remain in Mississippi, where under a provision of the 1830 removal treaty, individual Choctaws were able to take small allotments of land and become citizens of the state of Mississippi. They later organized as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a tribe politically separate from the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and consisting of seven reservation communities. Kidwell’s paper focuses on the Mississippi Choctaws before and after the removal period.
