Chickasaw Lives: Explorations in Tribal History

Arriving from the west ages ago, the people who became the Chickasaws settled in a portion of southeastern North America. As they were emerging from the Mound Builder culture into historical times, they became embroiled in the deadly quest of European colonial powers to extend their empires to the New World. By the 1730s, the Chickasaws were targeted for extermination.

But, as Richard Green shows in Chickasaw Lives, the Chickasaw people survived and prospered. Then their one-time ally, the United States, became their adversary and forced the tribe to move west to Indian Territory. After several years of despondency, the people were again building a great nation. Simultaneously, however, a great horde of Anglo-Americans settled illegally on their new land. With some of those Americans clamoring for Oklahoma statehood, the U.S. government set a date to extinguish the tribe’s government and land base.

Here for the first time is a selection of articles and essays that explain why that did not happen. Green explains how the tribe kept body and soul together until tribal government could be reconstituted and revitalized after the United States in the 1960s stopped attempting to vanquish tribal governments.

The twenty-nine articles featured here are arranged chronologically from prehistory into the modern era. Topics include the Mound Builders, the epic battle with Hernando de Soto, European colonial manipulations and wars, Removal to Indian Territory, the land-allotment period, and the Chickasaw Nation’s revitalization in the second half of the twentieth century.