A tribe mostly Mobilians, and a peaceful agricultural people.
Their domain comprised
southern Mississippi and
western Alabama.
De Soto fought them in 1540.
They became allies of the
French in
Louisiana, where they numbered about 2,500 warriors, and formed forty villages.
In the Revolution they were mostly with the
English, but were granted peaceable possession of their lands by the United States government.
On Jan. 3, 1786, a treaty was made with the leaders of the nation, of the same purport and upon the same terms as that made with the Cherokees the previous year.
As early as 1800, numbers of them went beyond the
Mississippi, and in 1803 it was estimated that 500 families had emigrated.
They served with the United States troops in the second war with
England and in that with the
Creeks, and in 1820 they ceded a part of their lands for a domain in what is now the
Indian Territory.
In 1830 they ceded the rest of their lands and joined their brethren west of the
Mississippi, where the Chickasaws joined them.
In 1861 they had a population of 25,000, with 5,000 negro slaves.
They were seduced into an alliance with the
Confederates in the
Civil War, and disaster befell them.
They lost an immense amount of property, and their numbers, including the Chickasaws, were reduced to 17,000.
Slavery was abolished, and part of their lands was forfeited for the benefit of the freedmen.
In 1899 there were 18,456 Choctaws at the
Union agency,
Indian Territory.
