Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek

During the first three decades of the nineteenth century the Choctaw tribe of Mississippi signed treaties with the United States guaranteeing their rights to remain on their land and hold lands in common. When the state of Mississippi extended its laws over the Choctaw Nation and refused to acknowledge these agreements, the Choctaws hoped federal authorities would help them settle the dispute in a peaceful manner. Unfortunately, they placed their trust in the administration of Andrew Jackson, a president committed to the removal of all southeastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River.

U.S. Secretary of War John Eaton and a group of Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, 1830, in which Choctaws agreed to remove to the West. Although the terms of the treaty promised the Choctaws protection "from domestic strife and from foreign enemies," more than one-quarter of the tribe perished in the long trek to Indian Territory. For those who remained in the East, treaty provisions allowing individual Choctaws to claim homesteads were undermined by settlers and corrupt state officials, who conspired to dispossess them. Finally, although the treaty pledged that the United States would "forever secure said Choctaw Nation," federal officials later encouraged the state of Oklahoma to organize in an area that encompassed what had previously been recognized as tribal land.

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