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Transformation of Early Nineteenth Century Chickasaw Leadership Patterns, 1800-1845

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Transformation of Early Nineteenth Century Chickasaw Leadership Patterns, 1800-1845 University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2014 Transformation Of Early Nineteenth Century Chickasaw Leadership Patterns, 1800-1845 Emily Paige Smithey University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons Recommended Citation Smithey, Emily Paige, "Transformation Of Early Nineteenth Century Chickasaw Leadership Patterns, 1800-1845" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 370. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/370 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TRANSFORMATION OF EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY CHICKASAW LEADERSHIP PATTERNS, 1800-1845 THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Anthropology The University of Mississippi BY EMILY P. SMITHEY May, 2014 Copyright Emily P. Smithey 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This is an examination of the changing leadership patterns of the Chickasaw Nation during the early nineteenth century, and combines the internal function of Chickasaw government with the leaders’ responses to overwhelming external factors. This thesis begins in 1800, a time that hinges on the remnant Chickasaw political leadership offices of previous centuries, such as the Minko and Tisho Minko, combined with the formation of newer offices such as district chiefs. It ends in 1845 after the Chickasaws were forced to remove from their Mississippi homelands into the Indian Territory. After removal, the Chickasaws began a more centralized form of government by holding elections to determine their leaders, and leadership power increased. Previous studies on Chickasaw leadership during this time is focused on members of the Colbert family and their influence and role within the Chickasaw Nation. At times, this focus has overshadowed the important contributions made by other prominent leaders, such as Tishomingo and Ishtehotopa. This study will follow many active leaders of the early nineteenth century in order to more accurately discuss the changes in political organization, changes in leadership duties, the degree of importance each office held, and the transformation of political organization into a more centralized government. This thesis also tackles the anthropological use of binary categories, in this case “traditional” and “progressive.” Categories are a useful analytical tool that contributes to the study of a culture and changes within cultural institutions such as government. The terms “traditional” and “progressive” are often applied to Indians after contact with Europeans to ii measure the degree of change one has accepted. These categories are not clearly defined by a scholar before it is applied, often falsely assume a leaders acceptance of a new culture, and overlook the individual and his contributions to cultural change. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………….. ii LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………………v LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………….vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIC CHICKASAW LEADERSHIP PATTERS …………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 2: EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY CHICKASAW LEADERSHIP ORGANIZATION AND LAND CESSIONS, 1800-1814 ………………………………….28 CHAPTER 3: CHICKASAW POLITICAL CHANGES AND MAJOR LAND CESSIONS, 1815-1825 …………………………………………………………………………………...53 CHAPTER 4: STATES’ RIGHTS AND THE REMOVAL ACT: THE IMPACT OF EXTERNAL FORCES ON CHICKASAW POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, 1826-1845.. 75 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ………………………………………100 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………………..114 VITAE ……………………………………………………………………………………. 122 iv LIST OF TABLES 1. Summary of Early Nineteenth Century Leaders and Offices, 1800-1845 …………………6 2. Households and Legacy of James Colbert ………………………………………………..34 3. General Premises used to Determine Traditional and Progressive Dichotomy ………….107 4. George Colbert and the traditional/progressive dichotomy …………………………… ..108 5. Tishomingo and the traditional/progressive dichotomy …………………………………109 6. Levi Colbert and the traditional/progressive dichotomy ………………………………...110 7. Ishtehotopa and the traditional/progressive dichotomy ………………………………….111 8. Appassantubby and the traditional/progressive dichotomy ……………………………...111 9. Samuel Sealey and the traditional/progressive dichotomy ………………………………112 v LIST OF FIGURES 1. Indian Territory, ca 1830-1855………………………………………………………. 92 2. Indian Territory, 1855-1866 …………………………………………………………..102 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIC CHICKASAW LEADERSHIP PATTERNS Statement of Purpose and Significance Most histories portray Native American groups during the Indian Removal of the 1830’s as victims of greed and cruelty by the American government and settlers. Though the disgraceful actions of the Americans are not to be disregarded, this thesis will examine the internal role, contributions, and both voluntary and involuntary decisions made by Chickasaw leaders during Indian Removal and how these roles, in turn, changed Chickasaw leadership roles and patterns. I begin the story in 1800 because this is when several new leaders arise and their duties of each office seem to shift. There was also the end of European rivalry for Chickasaw trade, and the Chickasaws now only dealt with the United States as the only foreign nation. Chickasaw political offices also began to expand, leading to the creation of district leaders and official interpreters. Also pressures and negotiations for several successive land cessions continued at an expedited rate which resulted in many changes in leadership patterns as Chickasaw leaders negotiated these cessions and demands. I end the story in 1845 when the Chickasaws adopted a new way of choosing leaders, disbanding previous offices like Minko and Tisho Minko, and began holding elections, ending ascribed leadership selections. A conundrum plaguing the current works of some scholars on Native leadership is the notion of “traditional” and the application of the term to Native American culture in binary opposition to “progressive.” These terms are difficult to define. Generally speaking, 1 “traditionalists” are assumed to have been more spiritual, to have opposed notions of private property, opposed removal, and refused to adopt American culture. “Progressive” leaders, scholars suggest, were more inclined to accepting American culture and intrusion, land allotments, and lead with personal self-interest over that of the group. The term “traditionalist” has implications of demeaning Indians by other-izing them, and making them seem less advanced when compared to those termed “modern” or “progressive.” There is no concrete meaning or beginning by which to measure what is “traditional” and therefore the concept should not be used to examine the ever-changing political organization that existed among the Chickasaws. Obviously, as we will see, leadership was much more complex than such binaries allow and did not easily fall into such categories. Instead I focus on the individual. The use of binary opposites has a long history in American scholarship. Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure formalized the concept when he determined that each unit of a language is defined through a complimentary opposite. Claude Levi-Strauss used this binary code as part of his structuralist theory. Levi-Strauss thought that the human mind thinks in binary opposites, such as hot-cold, man-woman, cooked-raw, good-evil and so on. Levi-Strauss asserted that people use these binary categories as a way to construct meaning through opposition. 1Jacques Derrida takes the idea of binaries farther when he stated that these binaries are hierarchical which results in unequal binary oppositions, such as civilized/ uncivilized, in which the “civilized,” based on Western determinism, is more dominant that the “uncivilized” society. 2 This can be seen in modernization theory which has been used to explain the progressive process a society passes through in order to become “civilized” or “modern.” Modernization 1 Marcel Henaff, Claude Levi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology . (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 10. 2 Jacques Derrida, Positions , 1992, 41. 2 theory uses “traditional” and “modern” as binary stages of a society. 3 This creates an unequal binary opposition in which the indigenous culture is viewed as inferior to the European/Western culture. It is this hierarchy that, until recently, scholars studying the Native South used without question through their use of the traditional/progressive dichotomy. Scholars often take different approaches when examining cultural transformations, and use cultural institutions such as economics, kinship, political organization, and ideologies as tools to measure and follow these transformations. As a means of showcasing cultural changes, scholars often-times juxtapose a society in one time-space with that of a previous time-space, such as comparing a society in the eighteenth century with the same society in the sixteenth century. Often, however, they choose to use the term “traditional” as a gloss and to contrast modern with traditional. It would be difficult to find a cultural work that does not contain the term “traditional,” yet the term is not clearly defined. It seems that the formation of a definition is unnecessary, as if there is an implied universal understanding
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