The Choctaw are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are enrolled in four federally recognized tribes: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana, and the Yowani Choctaws enrolled under the confederacy of the Caddo Nation.
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles. White Americans classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.
The State of Sequoyah was a proposed state to be established from the Indian Territory in eastern present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, with the end of tribal governments looming, Native Americans in Indian Territory proposed to create a state as a means to retain control of their lands. Their intention was to have a state under Native American constitution and governance. Their efforts failed to gain support in Congress, and the territory was annexed to the United States in 1907.
The Great Seal of the State of Iowa was created in 1847 and depicts a citizen soldier standing in a wheat field surrounded by symbols including farming, mining, and transportation with the Mississippi River in the background. An eagle overhead bears the state motto.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly 6,952,960 acres, it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding that of eight U.S. states. The seat of government is located in Durant, Oklahoma.
The Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma, showcases the art, history, and culture of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes": the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole tribes. Housed in the historic Union Indian Agency building, the museum opened in 1966.
The Chickasaw Nation is an Indigenous nation formally recognized by the United States government. The Chickasaw citizenry descends from the historical population of a Chickasaw-speaking Indigenous nation established in the American Southeast whose original territory was appropriated by the United States in the 19th century and subsequently organized into what is now the northern Mississippi and Alabama and the western reaches of Tennessee and Kentucky. As of 2023, the Chickasaw Nation is the 12th largest Indigenous nation in the United States by population, counting a total worldwide population exceeding 80,000 citizens, the majority of which reside in Oklahoma, where the Chickasaw national government is established in Ada.
Confederate Units of Indian Territory consisted of Native Americans from the Five Civilized Tribes — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. The 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles were commanded by the highest ranking Native American of the war: Brig. Gen. Stand Watie, who also became the last Confederate General to surrender on June 23, 1865. There was also a series of Union units of Indian Territory.
The Choctaw Freedmen are former enslaved Africans, Afro-Indigenous, and African Americans who were emancipated and granted citizenship in the Choctaw Nation after the Civil War, according to the tribe's new peace treaty of 1866 with the United States. The term also applies to their contemporary descendants.
The Yowani were a historical group of Choctaw people who lived in Texas. Yowani was also the name of a preremoval Choctaw village.
The Choctaw in the American Civil War participated in two major arenas—the Trans-Mississippi and Western Theaters. The Trans-Mississippi had the Choctaw Nation. The Western had the Mississippi Choctaw. The Choctaw Nation had been mostly removed west prior to the War, but the Mississippi Choctaw had remained in the east. Both the Choctaw Nation and the Mississippi Choctaw would ultimately side with the Confederate States of America.
The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention was an American Indian-led attempt to secure statehood for Indian Territory as an Indian-controlled jurisdiction, separate from the Oklahoma Territory. The proposed state was to be called the State of Sequoyah.
Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.
An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history an explanation of the Oklahoma Organic Act needs a historic perspective. In general, the Oklahoma Organic Act may be viewed as one of a series of legislative acts, from the time of Reconstruction, enacted by Congress in preparation for the creation of a united State of Oklahoma. The Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory that were Organized incorporated territories of the United States out of the old "unorganized" Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Organic Act was one of several acts whose intent was the assimilation of the tribes in Oklahoma and Indian Territories through the elimination of tribes' communal ownership of property.
On the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, a significant number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been relocated from the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Indian Territory, the Five Civilized Tribes, were suzerain nations with established tribal governments, well established cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.
The Treaty of Pontotoc Creek was a treaty signed on October 20, 1832 by representatives of the United States and the Chiefs of the Chickasaw Nation assembled at the National Council House on Pontotoc Creek in Pontotoc, Mississippi. The treaty ceded the 6,283,804 million acres of the remaining Chickasaw homeland in Mississippi in return for Chickasaw relocation on an equal amount of land west of the Mississippi River.
The Mount Tabor Indian Community is a cultural heritage group located in Rusk County, Texas. There was a historical Mount Tabor Indian Community dating from the 19th century. The current organization established a nonprofit organization in Texas in 2015.
The history of slavery in Oklahoma began in the 1830s with the five Native American nations in the area: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Slavery within these Native American nations began simply by placing a lower status on them than their master. The slavery in these tribes varied in style, being specifically different from American slavery. Slavery in the area continued to grow for many years, even throughout the entirety of the Civil War. The growth was significant, slaves making up a portion of the population in the new Indian territory. Slavery ended in the Oklahoma area with the completion of the Civil War. Treaties were made with the nations regarding citizenship and slavery for African Americans. The repercussions of slavery that followed greatly affected the state, with prominent racial issues.
