Joe Chitto
In the South, where Indians struggled to carve out a place for themselves in a space defined largely in terms of black and white, many Indians seized upon the opportunity to organize. But Collier’s initiatives proved to be more complicated and contradictory than first imagined. In North Carolina, the Indian Reorganization Act’s blood quantum requirements undermined the Lumbees, and Collier proved unable or unwilling to accept Lumbee conceptions of community. The Mississippi Band of Choctaws also met with frustration when they attempted to organize a government outside the purview of the local Office of Indian Affairs. Among its leaders was Joe Chitto, secretary of the Mississippi Choctaw Indian Federation. Consider why he chose to quote at length from ninety-year-old correspondence to express his dissatisfaction with the Collier administration and its failure to follow through on the promise of self-government in this letter drafted in August 1934.27
Sir:
In 1842 the Government sent a board of Commissioners to Mississippi to investigate the wrong perpetrated on the Choctaw Indians under the 14 article of the Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty.
The United States Emigrating Agent, John J. McRae, convened the Indians at Hopaka, in Leake County, and urged them in [torrid] terms, to enroll for removal to the west, and renewed in the name of the Government, the lavish promises the [that] had been made. Col. Cobb, the Choctaw chief, and one of the shrewdest men the nation ever produced replied to Mr. McRae’s speech. For your information we copy this speech as given by Claiborne’s Mississippi History page 513.
“Brother: We have heard your talk as from the lips of our father, the Great White Chief at Washington, and my people have called on me to speak to you. The Red man has no books, and when he wishes to make known his views, like his fathers before him, he speaks it from his mouth. He is afraid of writing. When he speaks, he knows what he says; The Great Spirit hears him. Writing is the invention of the pale faces; it gives birth to error and feuds. The Great Spirit talks. We hear him in the thunder, in the rushing winds, and the mighty waters. But he never writes.
Brother: When you were young we were strong; we fought by your side; but our arms are broken now. You have grown large. My people have become small.
Brother: My voice is weak; you can scarcely hear me; it is not the shout of a warrior, but the wail of an infant. I have lost it in the mourning over the misfortunes of my people. These are their graves, and in those aged pines you hear the ghosts of the departed. Their ashes are here, and we have been left to protect them. Our warriors are nearly all gone to the far country west; but here are our dead. Shall we go, too, and give their bones to the wolves?
Brother: Two sleeps have passed since we heard your talk. We have thought upon it. You ask us to leave our country, and tell us it is our Father’s wish. We would not desire to displease our Father. We respect him, and you his child. But the Choctaws always thinks. We want time to answer.
Brother: Our hearts are full. Twelve winters ago our chief sold our country. Every warrior that you see here was opposed to the treaty. If the dead could have been counted, it would never have been made; but alas! Though they stood around, they could not be seen nor heard. Their tears came in the rain-drops and their voices in the wailing wind, but the pale faces knew it not, and our land was taken away.
Brother: We do not now complain. The Choctaw suffers, but he never weeps. You have the strong arm and we cannot resist. But the pale-face worships the Great Spirit. So does the Red man. The Great Spirit loves truth. When you took our country, you promised us land. There is your promise in the book. Twelve times have the trees dropped their leaves, and yet we have received no land. Our houses have been taken from us. The white man’s plow turns up the bones of our Fathers. We dare not kindle our fires; but yet you said we might remain and you would give us land.
Brother: Is this truth? But we believe now that our Great Father knows our condition—he will listen to us. We are as mourning orphans in our country; but our Father will take us by the hand. When he fulfills his promises, we will answer his talk. He means well. We know it. But we cannot think now. Grief has made children of us. When our business is settled we shall be men again, and talk to our Great Father about what he has proposed.
Brother: You stand in the moccasins of a Great Chief; you speak the words of a mighty nation, and your talk was long. My people are small; their shadow scarcely reaches to your knee; they are scattered and gone; when I shout I hear my voice in the depths of the woods, but no answering shout comes back. My words, therefore are few. I have nothing more to say, but to tell what I have said to the tall Chief of the pale faces, whose brother stands by your side.”
You see how the Government treated our fathers, and now after more than one hundred years, the remnant of the once powerful Choctaws took Mr. Collier at his word, met, elected Chief, Sec., and Council. Adopted constitution and by-laws, and submitted them to you and asked for recognition; to be told by you that you would not recognize our Federation. It makes us Choctaws wonder if the Government ever makes its promise good to the Indians.