CHOCTAW INDIANS.
MEMORIAL OF J. F.
H. CLAIBORNE,
Praying that the
law of 1842, creating the Choctaw commission, be repealed; and that provision
be made to satisfy the just claims of the Choctaw Indians, and for their
removal from the State of Mississippi.
February 19, 1844.
Referred to the
Committee on Indian Affairs.
To the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United States:
The memorial of John
F. H. Claiborne, a citizen of the State of Mississippi.
28th
Congress, 1st Session. Doc.
No. 137. House of Reps.
9-5/8 x 6-5/16
inches. Very good condition. - - -
1844 CHOCTAW INDIANS –
MISSISSIPPI – TRICKERY
TREATY OF DANCING
RABBIT CREEK
“. . . Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
. . . extensive frauds are in contemplation on the Government and the Indian .
. by shrewd and designing white men . . obnoxious to every principle
of law and justice. . . thus rendering these unfortunate and impoverished
people liable to the legal penalties of perjury. . . (Choctaw) our friends when they were powerful
and free, but now reduced and impoverished; ignorant of our laws and language,
and the extent of their rights. . . A complete system of espionage is
maintained upon the claimants; most of them are indebted for small amounts,
in goods, or other property, (furnished through the speculator, at exorbitant
rates,) and they are kept in worse than the subjection of slaves. . .
Each company of
speculators retains constantly a corps of subordinates,
(many of whom understand the Choctaw
language,) whose duty it is to delude and alarm the Indians.
. . . their social
condition is deplorable indeed. ... they wander here in a country once their
own, and sold against their consent . . the pangs of hunger. . . . home is a paradise the poor Indian may
dream of, but not enjoy. .. The people
of Mississippi feel for them a deep and abiding sympathy, natives as they are
of the venerated earth we tread-worshipping the same Great Spirit, and nursed
under the same stars and skies. .. men who never shed one drop of American
blood, the warriors of Pushmatahah and Apuck-she-nubbee, who, like their
fathers that fought with Wayne, rallied around our national standard during the
last war . . . enormous fraud . . .the removal of the Indians . . . All
classes and sexes are habitually intemperate, ready to barter any chattel in
their possession for whiskey . . . Since the tready, more than four hundred
have been killed by each other, or died by their own hands, to expiate the
death of another . . . the poverty and moral deterioration of the race. . . . their
speedy removal to the west . . .
John F. H. Claiborne. Natchez, January 8, 1844.”
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