Chickasaw - Native American Indians (Essay Sample)

Chickasaw - Native American Indians
Name
Institution
Abstract
This paper discusses the Native American Indians (Five Civilized Tribes) who are Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws, Cherokees and Seminoles and their journey through the trial of tears. The different challenges that the tribes went through are analyzed including disease, hungers, and lack of water. The Cherokee are noted as the tribe that went through the most suffering during the trail of tears. The paper further analyzes the Chickasaw way of life in Weakly County, their land issues and the impact of the Indian Removal act that was signed by President Andrew Jackson. The law and how it caused the tribes painful moments is analyzed mainly for forcing the Indians out of their land permanently. Finally, the Chickasaw movement to their current Oklahoma state and their socioeconomic life and government is analyzed.
Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc405856692 \h 1Chickasaw - Native American Indians PAGEREF _Toc405856693 \h 3The Chickasaw Way of Life and Their Land PAGEREF _Toc405856694 \h 3Way of life PAGEREF _Toc405856695 \h 3Chickasaw and Their Land PAGEREF _Toc405856696 \h 4The Five Civilized Tribes and Their Journey on the Trail Of Tears PAGEREF _Toc405856697 \h 5Cherokee PAGEREF _Toc405856698 \h 5The Choctaw PAGEREF _Toc405856699 \h 5The Creek (Muscogee) PAGEREF _Toc405856700 \h 6The Seminoles PAGEREF _Toc405856701 \h 7Chickasaw’s Life Today PAGEREF _Toc405856702 \h 8Comparison and Assessment of Northwest Tennessee to Oklahoma PAGEREF _Toc405856703 \h 9Chickasaw in Northwest Tennessee PAGEREF _Toc405856704 \h 9Chickasaw in Oklahoma PAGEREF _Toc405856705 \h 9Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc405856706 \h 11References PAGEREF _Toc405856707 \h 12
Chickasaw - Native American Indians
Introduction
The Chickasaw tribes were Indians who, in the beginning settled in the south of United States. It was a relatively small tribe that consisted of fighters and hunters that settled around Mississippi. They had their fast encounter with the European explorers in the 1540s; from the very beginning these associations were full of tension. Along with other tribes, they were coerced to relocate in the state of Oklahoma which was an Indian territory, where the bulk of the tribe resides up to date.
The Chickasaw Way of Life and Their Land
Way of life
The Chickasaw was highly organized community. Their ancestry was only traced through their mother’s line, meaning that society was matrilineal. They initially lived in tents, and each community had a central meeting place. They had a political system that was well decentralized and each community had their own chief as well as other leaders. According to the study by Gorman (2011), the Chickasaw had a culture that mainly concentrated on military where their boys would be trained on martial arts and military routine, they mainly focused on military because they were made up of a small population and they had many enemies such as Europeans and other Indian tribes. They were famous for their military prowess and had reputation as ferocious warriors. The Chickasaw community worshiped an idol known as Ababinili, a god who represented the sky, clouds and the sun. They trusted in the spiritual powers of this deity since the sun was required to generate and sustain life. They also worshiped other idols each for a different purpose for example depending on faith for healing as well as protection from evil spirits. The Chickasaw community also made use of medicine from plants to treat illnesses.
Chickasaw and Their Land
The Chickasaw initially had contact with Europeans after meeting a Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his men in the 1540s the intention of De Soto and his men was to take over Chickasaw, they pressed hard and were able to take over one of the villages, this intention was met with a lot of opposition from the Chickasaw community who retaliated by burning their own villages and as a result the Spanish retreated from the area. In 1978, there was formation of Mississippi territory and white Americans swamped into the land, which was located at the centre of Chickasaw territory. The Chickasaws became under immense pressure to give up their lands to the Americans. These new pressures resulted to changes in the society and economy of the Chickasaw people. They began new agricultural pursuits, for instance, cotton farming and were influenced by concepts from American private land and constitutional government. Many Chickasaws adopted the American way of life following the settling of missionaries who taught them Christianity, American education and western-style. However, after Mississippi was declared a state in 1817, the Americans claimed that Indians had no privileges to land (Hale, Gibson, and Porter 1991). In 1818, Pressure to give up land rose and Chickasaw leaders started ceding their lands to the American residents, but they refused to give up their customary lands. In 1830, through President Andrew Jackson an act called Indian Removal Act was made into law. This law forced Indians out of their land permanently. Consequently, the Chickasaw, tried to resist the white invaders but they were overpowered and therefore forced to relocate to west of river Mississippi.
The Five Civilized Tribes and Their Journey on the Trail Of Tears
The tribes were the Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and the Choctaws. These tribes were described by Euro-Americans as ‘civilized’ because their cultures had characteristics that were misrepresented as having evolved after contact with the Americans. The civilized tribes were cultivators and lived in settlements.
Cherokee
Cherokee lived on Euro-American plantations and they had huge land holding, in addition they kept slaves. The Cherokee intermarried with the Euro-Americans. Groups of influential Cherokees came up in the 19th century; the group in 1820s makes an alphabet of the Cherokee language and published a Cherokee newspaper. The American government started removing the civilized tribes from Mississippi to the Indian Territory. The Cherokee led an opposition to the eviction but they were finally forcibly evicted using the federal troops. During the trail of tears, the Cherokee experienced adverse suffering during the cold weather conditions, a time they called the ‘trail of tears’
During the ‘trail of tears’ Cherokee went through a great deal of suffering. Many were removed from their homes without any possessions and they were therefore forced to travel throughout the hottest point in time of the year when the watercourse level was too low for navigation. In addition, there was an increase in sickness and death as a result of drought, bad water, awful diet and physical fatigue especially among children. They also experienced heavy rains that which made roads muddy as a result they were forced to manually drag the wagons from the mad.
The Choctaw
The Choctaw Indian nation is believed to have originated from Nanih Waya, which means ‘productive Mound’ and is commonly referred to as ‘The Mother Mound’. They trace their ancestry to Mississippi and some part of Alabama. Culturally, women were considered the head of households; in addition, they are the care takers of children, elders, and the home (Cushman and Debo, 1999). In 1830, over 20,000 Chickasaw were moved through a long journey to Oklahoma through a treaty called Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, they named it the ‘the trail of tears’ because most of them did not survive.
Through the efforts of missionaries the Choctaw adapted to Oklahoma and accepted a foreign religion as well as a new code of conduct, in addition to establishment of a completely alien education system and customized their commercial and agricultural practices to match with a multifaceted economic system. The Choctaw tribe was politically organized and it was divided into three political districts. Each of the districts had their own set of leaders. In 1860, they adopted a new constitution which provided the three branches of government namely the executive, the judicial and the legislative. The districts were now subdivided into counties, each of the counties had its own county officers namely, a judge, sheriff and ranger. And each of them had a duty of administering laws in his county.
The Creek (Muscogee)
The Creek (Muscogee) community was descendants of a very incredible culture. Early ancestors of the Creek build outstanding earthen pyramids as a component of their elaborate ceremonial complex. They later constructed expansive towns which are now in the present states of Georgia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina. The Muscogee were a union of several tribes, this unions progressed into a confederacy that was described by the Euro-Americans as ‘historic period," and it was the most refined political organization north of Mexico. They had tribal towns and each tribal town sustained a political independence as well as diverse land holdings. As population increased new tribal towns were established to cater for the growth. The Muscogee community was concentrated into two regions. The English called Muscogee people inhabiting the towns of Coosa and the Tallapoosa rivers and the Upper Creeks on the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers.
In the 19th century, the United States Indian policy concentrated on the eviction of the Muscogee and the other Southeastern tribes to regions beyond the Mississippi River. In 1832, the creek leadership switched over creek cherished ancestral land for new lands in Oklahoma Indian Territory. However, the majority of the creek found it difficult to break ties to lands which they felt as part of. Consequently, they were removed forcibly by the U.S Army. The American civil war was devastating for the Creek comm...