By Richard Green

Chickasaws in the Library of Congress

 After several years of cycling through phases of research, writing and revising, I finally completed a draft last fall of a book-length manuscript titled, A Narrative Social History of the Chickasaw People, Prehistory to 1763.  In November, I submitted the manuscript to Chickasaw Press.

 Originally, I intended the volume to end in 1837, with the beginning of the Chickasaw removal era. But as the manuscript grew and grew I decided it would be better to have two volumes of reasonable size than one big tome whose bulk might scare off potential readers.

 So in the last few months, I began assembling my research plan, notes and source material for the second volume, from 1763 to 1837. My first major section will cover from 1763 to 1783, the two decades during which the Chickasaws’ long-time trading partner and ally was Great Britain.

The second section will span the early years of the tribe’s—or more accurately, its factions’-- relations with the competing Spanish and Americans. Also included will be the war with the Creeks under their charismatic leader Alexander McGillivray and the last years of full-blood leadership period, ending with the death of Chief Piomingo in 1799.

The final section will cover the rise of the Colbert brothers’ leadership and deal with the tribe’s response to the initial version of American manifest destiny. Central to this is America’s Indian policy for deviously obtaining incremental land cessions that set the stage for the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and more specifically, Chickasaw Removal beginning in 1837.

I lay this plan out here publicly because I am hoping some of you will help keep me on track with periodic contact about my work and its status. I have a tendency to go off on tangents. In turn, I’ll contact some Chickasaws who have helped with previous feedback, be it support or useful criticism.
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Having collected Chickasaw-related source material for many years, I have accumulated plastic tubs of documents and articles and a few books, all of which I will use in producing this next manuscript. It’s a good start, but I couldn’t hope to complete the manuscript with what I had on hand.

As I surveyed this material, I realized I was quite light on the first period, 1763-1783. These were years when Britain initially had little competition for the Indian trade among the Southeastern tribes. That might have continued for years except that the American colonies were becoming deeply dissatisfied with their lack of representation in the British Empire. Later, the colonies would rebel and ultimately expel the British lion from North America.
 
Fortunately, I knew from prior research at the Library of Congress that its Manuscript Division had microfilmed an enormous amount of documents related to Britain’s American colonies. I had photocopied some Chickasaw-related documents in the past but the number available prior to 1750 was disappointingly small. A South Carolina archivist once mentioned that he understood periodic fires in the London repositories had consumed a large amount of the correspondence related to the Indian trade before 1750.

What about my new area of interest, between 1763 and 1783? Hints were discovered at the University of Oklahoma’s main library in a slim 1946 volume by Grace Gardner Griffin. It listed British colonial documents relating to American history that were stored in the Manuscript Division. These were classified variously, some by the colony’s name, others by Board of Trade or unfathomable names such as Plantations General. It was in this latter category that I found “Indian affairs, trade, etc., 1760-1784,” volumes 65 to 82.

The span of years was almost perfect. I asked a LOC reference librarian for more specific information but was told, “We don’t know much about those records. I can’t tell you the last time someone asked for them. You’ll just have to come up here and see for yourself.”

Self-serve is the modus operandi at most archives and libraries I’ve done business with in recent years. Because of tight budgets and shortages of experienced and knowledgeable staff, about all reference people have time to do is confirm the presence of a collection and whether the collection has a published finding aid or index--and if you are lucky, something about the source’s reliability. Archivists familiar with the contents of a collection are a huge but increasingly unexpected bonus to the researcher.
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The Library of Congresses’ Manuscript Division is not in the magnificent, Baroque, copper-domed Thomas Jefferson Building across 1st Street from the Capitol and next to the Supreme Court Building. The manuscript collections are housed in a small portion of the immense (2 million square feet) modern monolith called the James Madison Memorial Building, which is located across Independence Street from the Jefferson Building and catty-cornered to the Library’s third building, the aged, Soviet-looking John Adams Building.

Most of the original documents are only available to researchers on microfilm, and the quality of the images and the handwriting ranges from acceptable to migraine-inducing hopeless. One researcher who apparently had been looking at bad microfilm for a few minutes (it resembled a snowy white-out with traces of wind-blown debris) began loudly beseeching a curator to let him see the original documents. The curator politely turned down his request, saying he could make out most of the documents.

As an experienced microfilm reader and fatalist, I assumed I’d be seeing poor quality film. Instead, the objects of my research interest, volumes 65 to 82, were stored in legal-sized, heavy-cardboard boxes of a faded-red hue, one or two volumes per box.

Each volume contained up to hundreds of sheets of legal-size paper bundled together with ancient red ribbon. These were not photocopies of the original correspondence but transcripts of the originals done by people with beautiful, flawless penmanship.

I was very happy to see that I could read the pages almost as fast as if they had been typed. Suspicious of too much of a good thing, I asked a curator if all of the volumes were like this, and he said, yes, he thought so. He proved to be correct and reading this correspondence in this lovingly purified state saved untold hours of eyeball and brain strain associated with degraded originals on microfilm.

My appreciation for what I practically considered to be a lost art form separates me from the crusty, skeptical purists, who doubtless would reject the transcripts in favor of scrutinizing the microfilmed originals themselves. I trusted the transcriptionist’s honesty and judgment because I figured anyone whose handwriting was so flawless throughout would not be otherwise cutting corners. (I realize this could be a rationalization.)

Most of the documents were correspondence among British officials, primarily John Stuart, the superintendent of Indian Affairs for the southern tribes. As I proceeded to skim through them in chronological order, starting with 1763, a disappointing pattern emerged. Most of the correspondence concerned not the Chickasaws but the other major southeastern tribes that Britain needed to have in its trading orbit and sphere of influence.

They were the Cherokees, Creeks and the Choctaw. Complicating matters for the British was that each of these tribes had political factions, so it wasn’t simply a matter of sewing up a tribal leader who tribal members would follow. Furthermore, until 1763 when the French ceded most of its colony of Louisiana to the British, the majority of Choctaws had been allied with the French and enemies of the British and Chickasaws. Moreover, the Creeks and Choctaws were fighting a protracted war with each other.

 In contrast, the Chickasaws were a much smaller tribe and much more distant from the trading centers in Carolina and Georgia. Moreover, as the documents suggest, British officials believed the tribe could always be counted on; in modern parlance, the Chickasaws were locked up.

 Still, in thousands of pages of correspondence, the Chickasaws did turn up as subjects or co-subjects of several documents, and I photocopied those. Or my assistant (and wife) Gail Fites copied them during her three-hour shifts which she volunteered for on two successive days. We also copied some correspondence devoted entirely or primarily to other tribes or tribal leaders mainly for the non-military information that I thought could expand my view of the tribe’s social organization or lifestyle.
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 The remainder of this article contains excerpts from the documents during that first important year, 1763. After France relinquished its colonies in North America earlier that year, the British called for a Congress of the major southeastern tribes to be held in Augusta, Georgia, to discuss trade alliances. Of the 900 Indians in attendance about 40 to 50 were Chickasaw.

 For the sake of clarity, my own explanatory notes are in standard type. The documents, with spelling and punctuation unchanged, are in italics.

 Commenting on convening the Congress, a British official wrote: …with regard to the Chactaws and Chickesaws they are already on their route. We all know that 2 or 300 miles to an Indian is nothing when he is in expectation of either Rewards or Revenge and they frequently come that distance uninvited and upon an uncertainty.

The next excerpt links tribal leaders with James Colbert, the white trader who eventually had three Chickasaw wives. The male children they produced and raised would constitute a later generation of Chickasaw leaders. With the Tuquabachies [of the Creek confederation] came the Leader of the Chickasaws, Paya Matta, one Considerable leading man of the Chactaw Nation called Red Shoes and about twenty Chickesaws of Note and their followers. Colbert [James Logan] had arrived some days before them. He said that the treatment which he and the Chickasaws received in their way through the Creek Nation was Extremely Insolent…

On Nov. 8, 1763, James Colbert is identified as the interpreter for Paya Mattaha (spelled Pia Matta this time). In a British letter, the chief is quoted as saying: he & his are few, but faithful…that he looks on the white people & them as one, that they are as good Friends as if they had sucked one Breast. [Nevertheless], the Traders create disturbances between the Red and the White people. He has a very great regard for the White People, but they have not for one another.

Many White People go through his towns to Trade with the Chactaws, he would not have the whole stopped [but] the number only lessened. [John] High Rider and John Browne were enough traders [to supply the Chickasaws] and he desires no more.

Pouchymatayhad [this spelling mangles whatever the name was], the Second Man of the Chickesaws, then said, it is not out of an ill will to other traders, but that the Two abovementioned [High Rider and Brown] have always been with them.

Later at the Congress, James Colbert is identified as the interpreter for the Choctaws. Red Shoes, the Chactaw Leader declared he was a new Friend, his Talk is not long, and he hopes twill be accepted. The Peace between the Chickesaws and him hath been faithfully kept. Now he wants his Nation to be under the English as well as other Red People.

On Nov. 9, 1763, John Stuart made lengthy remarks, part of which was the official British response to the talk delivered two days before by Paya Mattaha. Again, Colbert served as interpreter. The colonists called the chief their “eldest brother,” and presented “an example” to the other Indians.

Your talk was as straight, and as grateful, as your conduct has been for these many years. We hope the chain of friendship, which has long united us will receive additional strength and Brightness. The words you have uttered are those of a wise and generous man. By preserving your heart entirely English, by making their Enemies, your Enemies & their friends your friends, you have felt no wants whatever.

Then, turning to Paya Mattaha’s complaints about too many traders and his expressed desire that only two specific traders be allowed to do business in Chickasaw country:

           The Choctaw trade will be carried on from Mobile [now that the English had acquired that town] because it will be more convenient to both English and Indians, so that from this time you will have no complaints of that kind to make [since the traders will no longer be traversing Chickasaw land].

           On the other hand, Stuart tells the Chickasaws that having only two traders would keep the prices higher than if more traders are competing for Chickasaw trade. When the trade is in few hands the Prices of Goods is always higher; but if you give a preference to the traders, you have mentioned, you are under no obligation to buy Goods of others; if High Rider and Brown are your friends, deal with them only. But they are more likely to continue to use you when you have other Traders to Resort to, in case they abuse you. We have nothing further to add.
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Postscript: What Stuart could have added was that he had no authority to restrict the traders, and even if did have, he did not have the troops to enforce such an edict. As a result, the unscrupulous and immoral traders continued to cheat the Chickasaws in various tried-and-true ways throughout 1763 and well beyond. All in all, British trade helped the tribe to survive and stay together. But trade made tribal members so dependent on guns, ammunition, clothing, metal tools, and worse still, rum, that more warriors than ever were turning away from the tribe’s traditional values and rituals. In exasperation, Paya Mattaha and others noted this exasperating, sad trend at future congresses until the British signed their own North American exit papers in 1783.
 
Readers may contact Richard Green at (405) 947-5020 or rgreen26@cox.net