Choctaw Resurgence in Mississippi: Race, Class, and Nation Building in the Jim Crow South, 1830-1977

When the Choctaws were removed from their Mississippi homeland to Indian Territory in 1830, several thousand remained behind, planning to take advantage of Article 14 in the removal treaty, which promised that any Choctaws who wished to remain in Mississippi could apply for allotments of land. When the remaining Choctaws applied for their allotments, however, the government reneged, and the Choctaws were left dispossessed and impoverished. Thus begins the history of the Mississippi Choctaws as a distinct people. Despite overwhelming poverty and significant racial prejudice in the rural South, the Mississippi Choctaws managed, over the course of a century and a half, to maintain their ethnic identity, persuade the Office of Indian Affairs to provide them with services and lands, create a functioning tribal government, and establish a prosperous and stable reservation economy. The Choctaws' struggle against segregation in the 1950s and 1960s is an overlooked story of the civil rights movement, and this study of white supremacist support for Choctaw tribalism considerably complicates our understanding of southern history. Choctaw Resurgence in Mississippi traces the Choctaw's remarkable tribal rebirth, attributing it to their sustained political and social activism. Katherine M. B. Osburn is an associate professor of history at Arizona State University. She is the author of Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1885-1934 (Nebraska, 2008).

Author: Katherine M. B. Osburn
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 07/01/2014
Pages: 342
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.15h x 5.95w x 0.82d
ISBN13: 9780803273870
ISBN10: 0803273878
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies
- History | Indigenous Peoples in the Americas
- History | United States | State & Local | South (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,

About the Author

Katherine M. B. Osburn is an associate professor of history at Arizona State University. She is the author of Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1885-1934 (Nebraska, 2008).