CHOCTAW (properly CHAHTA, the chief in Chateaubriand's Atala' is an eponym of the tribe), one of the largest tribes of the great Muskhogean (q.v.) stock and be fore its deportation the most advanced in hus bandry and general culture of any except the Creeks. They were called 'Flatheads' by the French (not to be confused with the northwest ern tribe of that name), from a habit of flat tening their children's skulls with bags of sand; and they had a burial custom of disinterring the corpses after a few days, cleaning the bones and preserving them. They are rather short, stout and slow, compared to the taller and more active Chickasaw (q.v.) ; and were nicknamed 'tubbies,' though not on that ground, but from the customary final word of their war-chiefs' names, meaning °killer.* The Chickasaw was one of their subdivisions, or perhaps merely the more warlike and adventurous portion, till after the whole had crossed the Mississippi; and while using a dialectic language of their own for com mon service, still employed Choctaw for oratory. The Choctaw occupied central and southern Mississippi and western Alabama in three divi sions, west of the Muskhogee; and in the 18th century their chief towns lay in two groups, one some 200 miles north of New Orleans (about the present Choctaw County, Miss.) and the other about half way from the Chickasaw to Mobile. These villages a century earlier had been numerous and widely distributed; they are stated at 40, and the tribe as having 2,500 war riors. It was first found by De Soto in his ex pedition of 1540. At their town of Mavila (Mobile probably, Choctaw Bluff, Clarke County, Ala., on the north bank of the Ala bama), was fought perhaps the bloodiest and most destructive single battle ever known be tween red and white men on the continent. The village was burned, 20 of De Soto's men killed and 150 wounded and many hundreds of In dians slain — the Spanish chroniclers say 2,500 to 3,000, which may be discounted. Tristan de Luna met them again in 1560. The French, in settling this region about 1700, came immediately in contact with them, and established friendly relations with them, contrasting strongly with the permanent hostility of the Chickasaw, against whom and the Natchez the Choctaw aided the French. The latter planted forts in their country and sent missionaries among them. In the final struggle between France and Eng land, however, the English won over a part of them, including the chief Red Shoes. After the Revolution the Choctaw shared with the other Indians in the general treaty of Hopewell, 28 Nov. 1785, by which the sovereignty of the
United States was recognized, a portion of the Choctaw lands ceded and they were "guaran teed° the possession of the rest. By 1800 some 500 of them had migrated to the Arkansas (Indian Territory) and it is said that the rest were much less unwilling to go than the Chero kees and Creeks. They did good service to the Americans in the Creek War 1813-14. In 1820, by the Treaty of Doak's Stand, they ceded part of their lands for an equivalent amount on the Arkansas; and in 1830, by that of Dancing Rab bit Creek, they gave up the rest —19,000,000 acres, or nearly 30,000 square miles, in the two cessions, for 20,000,000 acres in Indian Terri tory and $2,225,000 in money and goods. In 1837 they removed with the Chickasaw to their new lands, between the Arkansas and Canadian rivers on the north and the Red River on the south. How the Chickasaw first amalgamated with and then separated from them is told under CHICKASAW. They made good progress, re ceived the missionaries of the American board and several Church denominations, were given a well-devised school system and established a government consisting of a head chief, a coun cil of 40 chiefs, a two-chambered legislature and a regular judiciary system, with trial by jury. Like all the southern tribes,. they were slaveholders and in 1860 had some 5,000 negro slaves. Their superintendent and agents were Southerners, and they joined the Confederate side in the Civil War. Though their land was not overrun, their progress was brought to a standstill and their population reduced by a third; and after the war, they were for a time deprived of their rights. On being restored, they had to part with a section of their lands to the government, which settled other tribes there. For a time, a territorial government was formed, with the superintendent as governor; and they had to make heavy allowances to their emancipated slaves. A grammar of their diffi cult language was published in 1870. In 1915 there were 25,168 Choctaws proper in the Ter ritory, besides those who had taken up lands in severalty; and 1,660 still remaining in Mississippi.
The lands located in the Choctaw Nation comprise 6,953,048 acres, which under trea ties with the United States government, owing to their close affiliation with the Chicka saw Nation owning an additional 4,707,903 acres, total 11,660,951 acres, are held in com mon by the members of both of these tribes of Indians. See CHICKASAW; INDIAN AFFAIRS.