Choctaw Nation Mississippi River Clan

The Sovereign Choctaw Nation Mississippi River Clan is a heritage group that claims to be of Choctaw descent. Its adherents are presently located within the geographical regions of Mississippi and Texas. This organization is not an Indian tribe as that term is defined and/or interpreted under federal Indian law. The group claims that the ancestors of its adherents originally inhabited the Mississippi River valley, including Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana.
History
During the War of 1812 Pushmataha, a Choctaw brigadier general in the U.S. army, fought under future president Andrew Jackson and saved Jacksons' life in battle. Pushmataha's valour and leadership sincerely impressed Jackson, but later Jackson betrayed the Choctaw people and the Choctaw general that saved his life. While president, Jackson carried out policies that led to the removal of the Choctaw people to Indian Territory. During the 1820s the U.S. Federal government increasingly pressured the southeastern tribes to move west of the Mississippi River. Several times before 1830, the American government officials proposed to the Choctaws that they exchange their homeland for Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). At the same time European-American settlers in the future states of Alabama and Mississippi were pressuring the federal government to remove the Indian nations from their chartered state boundaries. New settlers continued to seek land and encroached on Indian territory.
In 1830 United States Treaty Commissioners asked the Choctaw leaders to meet them at Dancing Rabbit Creek in order to consider land cession and removal. Most Choctaw opposed removal to the west. The Choctaw District Chiefs declined, saying the Choctaws did not want to leave their country. The Chiefs were told that Article XIV of the treaty allowed people to remain in the east, their homeland. They were told that the state of Mississippi would extend its law over the Choctaws and the people could no longer live under their own government and laws. The Choctaws who remained in the East would become US citizens and have to live under U.S. and Mississippi law. Under these threats, the Chiefs agreed to accept removal and exchange their land for Indian Territory. Many people refused to leave their homeland, including the Choctaw Nation River Clan. Under the Treaty the Choctaws were to move west over the next two years.
Between 1831 and 1833 three-quarters of the Choctaw migrated to Indian Territory in horrible conditions with little or no food during the Trail of Tears. Many died. Approximately 2000 stayed in Mississippi and Alabama, the traditional territory of the ancestral Choctaw Nation. Only a small number of Choctaw were officially registered under the treaty as remaining in Mississippi State. Many lived economically and socially marginal existences.
Post-Civil War
In Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in 1833 the Choctaw that left their homeland in Mississippi and Alabama, formed a Constitutional Government, which remained under their control until 1906. That year they were encouraged by the U.S. government to dissolve tribal government and accept individual shares of tribal land so that the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory could be merged and admitted as a state - the state of Oklahoma. Choctaw Oklahoma is now a federal corporation. Choctaw Oklahoma refused to help poverty stricken Choctaws that remained in present day Mississippi.
By the 1850s roughly two thousand Choctaws lived in several southeastern small communities scattered in mostly rural areas from New Orleans, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama. In these they continued to speak their native tongue and to practice the ceremonies and rituals that gave meaning to their lives.
The problems Choctaws encountered in adapting to becoming US citizens in Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas were aggravated by the state's racism based on slavery. Following the American Civil War, they suffered equally in the widespread poverty of the war's aftermath. The Choctaw were sometimes attacked along with freedmen in the social and political violence associated with Reconstruction and its aftermath.
After conservative Democrats regained control of southern state legislatures in the 1870s, they proceeded over the next decades to pass new constitutions and statutes that essentially disfranchised blacks, as well as the Choctaw, and tens of thousands of poor whites. Alabama passed Jim Crow legislation that divided society into two races, and imposed segregation on all the white legislators defined as "colored", all who were non-white. In their drive to control African-Americans, the legislators ignored the separate history and cultures of the Choctaws and Creeks.
Current status
It is from the aforementioned "disbanded" tribal groups that the Sovereign Choctaw Nation Mississippi River Clan claims to have members. The members of this group claim to continue to practice unspecified "traditional ways," and even claims to practice peyotism, which is not and was never an element of Choctaw culture, but rather that of tribes from the desert Southwest.

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