The story of the Chickasaws begins somewhere in the dim past, perhaps in what is now Mexico. According to legend, the people followed a sacred leaning pole, which they erected each day. When the pole no longer leaned, they knew they had found their new home. The land occupied by the Chickasaw Nation once comprised tens of thousands of square miles in the southeastern United States.
This land was coveted by the North American colonial powers—Spain, France, and England—and alliances and battles were joined and fought with the Chickasaws and other tribal nations throughout the seventeenth century. The United States entered this mix in the eighteenth century and eventually consolidated its power enough to significantly influence the Chickasaws and other southeastern tribes.
With increasing white settlement during the early part of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government forced the southeastern tribes to move to the West on the Trail of Tears. Some forty-nine hundred Chickasaws and eleven hundred of their slaves settled in the Choctaw Nation (in what is now Oklahoma) until the tribe received sufficient government annuities to buy land immediately west of the Choctaws. In 1856 the Chickasaw leadership drafted and ratified a constitution at the tribe's new capital, Tishomingo. The first Chickasaw governor was Cyrus Harris, who had been born in Mississippi.
The next challenge to the Chickasaw Nation came in the latter part of the nineteenth century, by which time white settlers outnumbered Chickasaws on their own land many times over. This time Congress, instead of forcing the tribe to move again, carved up the Chickasaw Nation into individual allotments, in violation of treaty agreements. Although the tribe resisted this idea, land allotments proceeded after the turn of the century. Congress effectively gutted Chickasaw tribal government by 1906—except for the federally appointed governor and tribal attorneys to preside over what was intended to be a final liquidation.
That liquidation never happened. Douglas Johnston, the twelfth Chickasaw governor, dutifully protected the tribe's interests until his death in 1939. Ten years later, Congress finally appropriated $8.5 million for the tribe and its Choctaw Nation partners for their jointly owned 350,000 acres of coal- and asphalt-rich land and $3.5 million for some disputed land called the "leased district." Most of this money was dispensed to tribal members as a per capita payment.
By 1950, however, grassroots movements within the old Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations had sprung up, calling for democratic forms of tribal government. The leader of the movement in the Chickasaw Nation, Overton James, was appointed governor in 1963. Starting with virtually no records and assets, James began building a tribal government just as the federal government began funneling millions of dollars to tribes to bolster tribal governments and social and economic services to tribal members. In 1971, in the first federally recognized Chickasaw tribal election since 1904, James was elected governor.
In 1979 the Chickasaw Nation adopted a new constitution establishing a three-branch government. After some court challenges by tribal members, a modified form of the constitution was ratified by the members and approved by the U.S. government in 1983. After twenty-four years as governor, Overton James retired in 1987, and his lieutenant governor, Bill Anoatubby, was elected to replace him.
Early Chickasaw tribal life was matrilineal and clan centered. A mixed economy based on corn agriculture also included warfare and trade as principal pursuits. Prosperous fortified towns featured both open-sided summer houses and comfortable wattle and daub winter dwellings. Healing ceremonies called pashofa dances and annual green corn renewal observances were held to ensure tribal harmony and well-being. Stickball, a rough-and-tumble game related to lacrosse, was played to help settle community differences, and was sometimes used as a substitute for war. Warfare was highly regarded, and Chickasaw forces dominated much of the mid-South region.
Today the government of the Chickasaw Nation is composed of executive, legislative, and judicial departments that provide economic, social, educational, and cultural services to thirty-five thousand tribal members. Located in thirteen counties in south central Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation as of August 31, 1994, had assets totaling $35 million.
Gary White Deer
Choctaw
Ada, Oklahoma
