Indian Leaders: Oklahoma’s First Statesmen Page: 79
vii, 182 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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THE COLBERTS:
CHICKASAW NATION ELITISM
By Arrell Morgan Gibson
During the early years of Anglo-American dominion over the Indian
nations residing in the Eastern United States, leadership was particularly
crucial for tribal survival. A deliberate tactic of federal officials was to
debauch and corrupt tribal leaders and create internal chaos in order to
make the Indians more amenable to national purpose-reduction of -Red
power, appropriation of tribal lands and exile of the resident Indians into
the Trans-Mississippi wilderness. Most Indian tribes situated in the Old
Northwest, Old Southwest and Mississippi Valley, once federal agents had
emasculated their leaders, and unable themselves to formulate a strategy of
survival, became easy marks for callous white settler-intruders who inflicted
shameful imposition and indignity upon the tribesmen. The Chickasaw
nation is a singular exception to this melancholy pattern of tribal decline
and dissolution. This fortuitous circumstance was due largely to the
presence of a corps of mixed-blood leaders, centering on the Colbert family,
who were able to thwart the traditional exploitation patterns and defy the
dreadful public and private pressures long enough to significantly delay
the Chickasaw exile. They were the last of the Five Civilized Tribes to
accept a home in Indian Territory. The skillful delay of removal by their
leaders enabled the Chickasaws to accomplish the most orderly relocation of
any of the Eastern tribes. And their leaders extracted from the national
government the best possible agreement for their people, far superior to the
generally punitive, expropriation-type treaties which federal agents had
forced upon the other Eastern tribes.
The mixed-blood community in the Chickasaw nation was formed soon
after 1690 when British traders from Charleston coursed over the interior
path to the lower Mississippi Valley with pack trains of goods to establish a
strategic entrep6t in the Chickasaw nation. Through the years there oc-
curred the gradual blending of Indian and white blood lines. Well before
the Anglo-American advent the growing mixed-blood community in the
Chickasaw nation was having far-reaching effect upon the tribe's economic,
social and political life. More like their Anglo fathers than their Indian
mothers the mixed bloods better understood the ways of Frenchmen, British-
ers, Spaniards and later Americans. They were more assertive than their
fullblood counterparts and came to comprise an aristocracy in the tribe.79
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Indian Leaders: Oklahoma’s First Statesmen (Book)
Book discussing the history of Native Americans, including Quanah Parker and Black Kettle, and their involvement in political, military, and social confrontations in Oklahoma. Index starts on page 177.
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Jordan, H. Glenn & Holm, Thomas M. Indian Leaders: Oklahoma’s First Statesmen, book, 1979; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc862883/m1/89/: accessed May 3, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; .