The Choctaw before Removal by Carolyn Keller Reeves

Author:Carolyn Keller Reeves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 1985-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

6

Choctaw Factionalism and Civil War, 1746–1750

Patricia K. Galloway

Most treatments of the Choctaw intratribal war of 1746–1750 have been brief, and few have said more than that it took place and that it involved factions supported by the French and the English. The one really extended study of these events, a 1946 dissertation by William Paape, offers an excellent analysis from the European point of view, but has the drawback of being generally unavailable.1 Constraints of space prevent me from analyzing every facet of the conflict. Rather I shall present, and argue, the thesis that this civil war, as a response to the French version of the lex talionis,2 demonstrates Choctaw resistance to acculturation in the area of crime and punishment. It also demonstrates Choctaw persistence in the belief that even an ally had to obtain justice through limited war.

The European source materials for such a study are unusually rich for this period of Choctaw history. First we have the French colonial correspondence contained in series C13A of the Archives des Colonies.3 The volume of Vaudreuil’s private letterbooks that covers the Mobile District also survives with evidence for part of this period.4 It contains all the letters written by Vaudreuil to his officers in the field in the Mobile District, which had jurisdiction over the Choctaw area. In most cases Vaudreuil acknowledges receipt of letters from his correspondents, and his answers permit some reconstruction of the contents of original reports.5

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in the Journal of Mississippi History, 44: 4 (November 1982), pp. 289–328. The Journal of Mississippi History is published by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in cooperation with the Mississippi Historical Society.

Finally, there is an unusual abundance of English material, much of which is of a polemic nature but still useful. Edmond Atkin wrote a lengthy account of the Carolina traders’ activities in the war in order to prove his own governor’s self-interest.6 James Adair’s account of the southeastern Indians contains much mention of his own part in the events of the war.7 In addition, the surviving Carolina “Indian Books” have some material relating to the traders’ activities (though only in the aftermath of the war). The journals of the Upper House, the Commons House of Assembly, and the Royal Council log the official actions of the South Carolina colony which bear upon the Choctaw.8

There is much bias in the European reports of the Choctaw conflict, but fortunately the bias comes from internal squabbles in the French and English colonies; in a sense, the facts emerge as the bias cancels itself out. It is clear that the French were much more concerned than the English about the effects of the war on the Choctaw themselves; however, the English sources permit an exceptional view of the attempt by one Choctaw faction to manipulate one European ally in order to gain independence from another.

If we wanted to determine only what happened during the Choctaw civil war, it would be sufficient to relate the sequence of events as reported in the European accounts.

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