A Little History

According to the DeSoto narratives of 1540, the earliest habitat traceable for the Chickasaw is northern Mississippi.� In addition, they claimed other territory far beyond the narrow limits of their villages.� Noted for their warlike disposition, they constantly fought with the neighboring tribes-sometimes with the Choctaw and Creek, sometimes with the Cherokee, Illinois, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Mobilians, Osage, and Quapaw.� They were constant enemies of the French, a feeling intensified by the intrigues of British traders and their hatred of the Choctaw, who had entered into friendly relations with the French colonists.� Their relations with the United States began with the Hopewell Treaty in 1786, when their northern boundary was fixed at the Ohio River.� They, began to emigrate west of the Mississippi as early as 1822;in 1832, they signed a treaty yielding their lands in Mississippi in return for a promise by the Government to find them a home west of the Mississippi River.� By 1837, most Chickasaw had migrated west to Indian Territory, and in the treaty of 1855, their lands in Indian Territory were definitely separated from those of the Choctaw, with which they had been included.