MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

[BlackWolf]

Over 88% percent of the members of the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians at the time of their BIA Proposed Findings were proven to be direct descendants of Indians identified as full blood Choctaws by the Dawes Commission.  As far as the other 12%, a wide breadth of sources of research was collected to determine Indian descent that was not limited to censuses.   Here is the Proposed Findings in Favor of Acknowledgement for the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians dated 9-27-1994.

Proposed Findings in Favor of Federal Acknowledgement for the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians
http://www.bia.gov/idc/groups/xofa/documents/text/idc-001446.pdf

One hundred percent of the 1993 membership descends from the individuals who were identified as Choctaw on the Federal census in 1900 and 1910 or as Indian on the 1880 and 1920 Federal census in LaSalle or Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.  Over 88% of the 1993 membership descends from someone identified by the US Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes (Dawes Commission) in 1903 as full blood Choctaw. Based on evidence submitted by the petitioner and uncovered during the research process, it is clear that the membership of the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians descends from the Choctaw who settled in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, before 1880.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

hi,

please forgive my ignorance as i am not knowledgeable and am learning
as i read and trying to digest the issue.. so, my question may be really stupid..
but since i don't know i thought i'd ask it anyway..

tuschkahouma posted:
Our ancestors have been documented as a distinct American Indian community since shortly after the 1830 Indian removal act.

my question is.. does this mean they have been a community only since then?
and does that then mean that their community was self made at that time, and
not a tribal community prior to?

[tuschkahouma]

firstly, critter, outside of indian agents, explorers, and invaders like Andrew Jackson excedera, many of these tribes didn't have written
history. Remember, Sequoyah, or George Gist's Cherokee syllabry only came into use in the 1820's. Cyrus Byington translated many religious
documents into my language and created a dictionary that the Oklahoma Choctaws used to sell. So outside of agency, military, or religious
documentation, there wasn't much of any written documentation for SE tribes. Tribes in the southeast were in situ in their tribal domains
until the period between 1805 and 1830. Basically the time between the LA Purchase, the War of 1812, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
That year 1830 is marked in my historical sense as the time for SE tribes equivilent to the 1930's for Jewish people as the Nazis were
making it more and more apparent what their motives were. Yes they existed in that area prior to 1830. They were forced to move around
as their territory was part of Spanish West Florida and had much invading by all of the European powers as witnessed by the many historical
flags flown at a museum in downtown Mobile, Alabama, which is named after the Mushkeogan speaking Mabilian peoples who were almost
wiped out in battle with Hernando De Soto's soldiers and whose survivors are amongst the Mowa people. My late mom lived in Pensacola
Florida which was named after the Panch Falaya or Long Hair people and also there is a Choctawhatchee River in the western part of
the FL Panhandle. Many related peoples like the Pensacolas, Pascagoulas, and Apalachees crossed Mobile and went to LA after the French
defeat in the French and Indian War of 1755-1763. They went to the areas between Marksville, Alexandria, and Natchitoches, LA, which
leads me to the Jena Band Of Choctaws.

[tuschkahouma]

Choctaws had been coming into LA to hunt. There were still Buffalo in LA in the early 1700's on the prairie between Lake Charles and Lafayette.
Choctaws hunted central and northern LA into Ark until they had issues with the Osage who in turn had issues with anyone entering their
domain. Choctaws named the Ouachita River from the words "Oua" and "Chito" which means big hunt. I lived as a child from 1975 to 1976
in Jonesville, LA, to the east of Jena. I went to Jena as a child. The Spanish authorities who granted the Tunica lands in 1778 also
invited Choctaws in as a buffer against the Americans. Choctaws had historically been around Abita Springs, Hammond, and the boot
of LA. The Bayou Lacombe Choctaws are in this area. I went to grade school in Jonesville with Cajun Choctaw kids with last names
like Sanson, Book and Chevalier. The Jenas were people from Catehoula and Monroe that stayed behind. It is a lot easier to deal with documentation on a tribe of nearly 300 people 13 years ago than a tribe of the Mowas size. I work with Christian Munsees that have had paper history since the Moravians converted them in PA and Ohio between the 1750's and 1770's. I do tribal roll research and you're giving me a hard time about the Mowas. The Mowas like my ancestors were screwed out of paper documentation by William Ward an agent who harrassed
the remaining Choctaws out of scrip lands promised in article 14 of the Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty of 1830. Gulf Coast Indians were
screwed over by the BIA. I know a Farve descendant who was lucky to be enrolled on the MS COAST as 1/2 Choctaw while other
relatives were left off the rolls in the late 1930's and early 1940's who were 3/4 Choctaw. Maybe if the Mowas would've gone to
LA after the French and Indian War we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[tuschkahouma]

Dr. Kenneth York, Ph.D. and Member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, after critical review of our evidence writes, “It is my belief as a member of MBCI that members of the MOWA Band are descendants of the Great Choctaw Nation which was disbanded by the U.S. Government during the Indian Removal Period. It is my professional opinion that the MOWA Band has provided documentation regarding the history, culture, and ancestral relationship as well, if not better, as any tribal petition in recent years.”


refute this while you're at it.......

[Diana]

I'm still not buying it tuschkahouma. I don't believe there is any grand conspiracy by the BIA or any government boogie man. You talk endlessly about history but never provide any solid facts. And all the history you do provide is from over 200 years ago, no real solid history as of recent.

I cannot discount the BIA going through over 3400 GENEALOGIES!!! It took them over 10 years to do this and not one person had any Indian blood, not even a drop! They only found 40 people with some minuscule Indian blood and it wasn't even Choctow. How do you explain that.


Lim lemtsh,


Diana

[BlackWolf]

tushkahouma said

firstly, critter, outside of indian agents, explorers, and invaders like Andrew Jackson excedera, many of these tribes didn't have written history. Remember, Sequoyah, or George Gist's Cherokee syllabry only came into use in the 1820's.

So outside of agency, military, or religious documentation, there wasn't much of any written documentation for SE tribes.

Critter, all the evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the Mowa’s ancestors are not descended from Indians. 

What relevance is it that before European contact and shortly after, many Tribes may not have had written history?  THERE ARE WRITEN RECORDS for the Mowa Choctaw’s ancestors in the 19th and 20th century (the time frame we are discussing here). 

 tuchkahouma, the Cherokees are extremely well documented.   Their names start to appear in records in the early 1700’s.  In one of your previous posts you also mentioned something about people of Cherokee descent in Alabama.  I’d like to also add that most of these claims to Cherokee heritage in Alabama based on oral stories are bogus.  Of all the people that claim Cherokee heritage in Alabama, all the evidence shows that only a ridiculously small percentage of these claims turn out to be factual.  Also, in regards to all those rejected as Cherokee/Choctaw, etc. Tribal members, under the Dawes Commission, the majority of these Rejected applications were filed by Whites and other non-Indians who wanted allotments and monetary payouts.  Many of these people’s descendants mistakenly believe they are descended from Indians.

[tuschkahouma]

fyi, I'm a Byrd Cherokee descendant of English/Cherokee ancestry through Brelands and Turners originally from Bertie County, NC, in the 1750's.
They stopped in Alabama for a time right before 1800 and had to get permission from the Creek Nation to pass through Alabama. I have
Turner ancestors buried in Washington County, Alabama across the border from Greene and Perry County, Mississippi. I'm noticing
a pattern here. Every time you've upped the ante whether it was validation from the Mississippi Band of Choctaws or showing
you the problems that the Mowas had with the BIA, you've been turned back. From the people I've listened to on here, outside of your
own respective tribes, you really don't know and you're extremely skeptical. I grew up between Coshocton and Newcomerstown, OH,
in 18th century Lenape Country. I was taught words like Muskingum, Tuscarawas, and Walhonding at three years of age.
We lived in Seneca-Cayuga and Wyandotte Country in Elyria, OH. We then moved to Taensa, Choctaw, Ouachita, and Natchez
country in Jonesville, LA, near Jena, LA when I was five and six. We then moved to Moss Bluff, LA, the home of the Attakapa,
Coushatta, and Redbones. From there we moved to Shreveport, LA, the former home of the Caddo Nation. I learned words
like Calcasieu, Catehoula, Atchafalaya, Natchitoches, and Tangipahoa, in LA as a child and Chickasawhay and Tchoufaboufas
in MS going to my grandparents. I learned something indigenous wherever I lived. I'm spent fifteen years educating myself
through tribal geography, ethnology, and linguistics, and later Indian law and the Choctaw language. None of what I know
was taught in my school or college years. I know what I'm talking about. I've spoken at Haskell about the Kansas Munsees
and Miami Tribe of Indiana in classes on Contemporary Issues and federal recognition. I have over 20 books on the MS, AL,
LA, and Okla Chahta people in my 300 book collection of ethnologies, law, civil rights, religion, and linguistics, of indigenous
peoples. I started off in 1994 memorizing tribes and can now name over 525 tribes off of the top of my head. Furthermore....

[tuschkahouma]

who documented the names of the Cherokees? agents and religious figures like the Moravian missionary David Branierd who worked with the Tsaligi
in the 1730's before David Ziesberger and John Heckewelder worked with the Munsees in the 1740's and 1750's in PA whose descendants I work
with. It's sure easy to argue when you ignore bits of statements to be redundant. Who did I say documented SE tribes, agents and missionaries.
It's possible for a number of people to descend from a small original group especially with the large families in the southeast. My German, Choctaw
and Biloxi Great Grandmother had eleven children including my grandfather. The Munsees I work with descend from the two children of a
surviving daughter of a Munsee man named Israel Welapatcheshen murdered by settlers at Gnadenhutten Ohio on March 6, 1782.
It is entirely possible that over 3000 Mowas descend from a small group of 19th century Choctaws and Creeks. The Munsees
I work with were last federally enumerated as termination occured in December 1900 with less than 85 members. There are
at least 1300 members with proveable lineages regardless of BQ through eight original Munsee family names currently. If you want to put
your money behind the validity of the BIA look at the misleading hatchet job they just did on the Brothertown Nation of Wisconsin
last year. I know a Munsee elder in Pomona, KS, whos part Brothertown and through that lineage she is a Narragansett and Montauk
descendant. Her Montauk Fowler ancestors come from the Wyandanch lineage and met the Dutch when they stole that land for $24
in the early 1600's. The BIA mislead the Brothertowns and told them in 1993 that they could go through the FAP even though
they accepted citizenship and termination in the early 1840's and still went to BIA boarding schools in the 20th century.
The BIA recently told them after 18 years of work that their petition had holes in it and they weren't allowed to go through the FAP
because of the 1843 termination act for that tribe . Who was asleep at the wheel in the BIA at the same time for the Mowas
Indiana Miamis, and Brothertown Indians?  can any of you skeptical supposedly knowing people explain this?  I didn't think so.
Either come up with some other arguement not based on an incomplete and omitting BIA finding or quit making up stuff to attack
the Mowas or any of the other ten or so legitimate tribes done wrong by the BIA in the last two decades.

[tuschkahouma]

the ten tribes I'm referring to are

Indiana Miami tribe in Peru Indiana
Schagticoke Nation near Kent Connecticut
Chinook Nation in Oregon
Duwamish Tribe in Washington State
Hassaminico Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts
United Houma Nation of LA
Paucatauk Pequot tribe of Connecticut
Ramapough Nation of NJ
Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin
Mowa Band of Choctaw Indians in Alabama

[earthw7]

Yup he confused me too
no current history of who they are and no evidence,
the old belief well: Native did not have writted language,
we had a form of writing in which we kept our histories, we have
winter counts and Chippewa have birch bake scrolls and other had
wampam beads.

[BlackWolf]

There was no proof whatsoever of Cherokee ancestry for any of the Mowa’s ancestors.  The Dawes Rolls and the Guion Miller Rolls are just two of numerous Rolls and censuses that documented the Cherokee people.  If someone claims Cherokee heritage and isn't able to prove it with some sort of solid evidence , the odds are overwhelmingly against their claims to Cherokee heritage.  As we see in the case of the Mowa's, some of their ancestors applied as Cherokees to the Guion Miller Roll of Eastern Cherokee, in order to obtain monetary payouts.  

Although individual MBC ancestors submitted applications for the Guion Miller Roll of Eastern Cherokees, and the 1972 Creek claims, these applications were rejected on the grounds that the applicants had not demonstrated any Cherokee ancestry or any Creek ancestry. Rejected applications do not provide evidence of Indian ancestry, although the applications themselves may be used as one set of clues to look for documentation of the asserted ancestry.

The petitioner claimed Indian ancestry (Creek on the paternal side and Cherokee on the maternal side) for Cecile Weatherford, wife of David Weaver. The claim could not be verified.  It was made on the basis of her family's oral tradition, which was stated on applications made to Guion Miller in 1908 for distribution of Eastern Cherokee Funds. The statements made in 1908 pertained to a woman who died in or before 1850. No confirming documentation dating to her lifetime was submitted by the petitioner or located by BIA staff researchers. The Weaver descendants' applications for distribution of Eastern Cherokee Funds were rejected by the Miller Comission on the grounds that they had not demonstrated Eastern Cherokee ancestry.

[Diana]

@tusckahouma, do you have ANY SELF AWARENESS? You sound like a crazy person. I don't care to hear your family history from 300 yrs ago. You still haven't provided any proof that the Mowas are actual Indians. They failed almost all BIA criteria, such as being a continuous Indian Tribe, actually knowing one another or having any family ties such as being "related" to one another and the biggest failure, actually having Indian blood. Also let me point out that these so called Mowas had to provide the BIA with personnel information of their own such as birth certificates, their parents birth certificates, grand parents birth certificates, great grand parents birth certificates , where they all were born and lived. It's not that hard of a thing to do unless you were adopted. Now lets say the average person is 40 that would mean that their info would only have to go back to about 1900, and all we get are immigrants. Like I said before I'm not buying it.

Oh, and by the way I don't believe for one minute that you are Indian. You have shown a weird obsessive fetish for anything Indian, you brag obsessively about meeting noted Indians and your learned knowledge about Indians. You are so over the top on this subject that you go to any length to prove to total strangers on a web site that you are indeed Indian. I'm sorry but you have over played your hand and I'm not falling for it. We've had people like you on here before and it never ends well, you all eventually go off the rails.



Lim lemtsh,

Diana

[tuschkahouma]

firstly, you insinuate that other Choctaws don't accept the Mowas, well Kenneth York does and was formerly against them under Philip Martin.
Secondly, you go from a innaccurate BIA finding on the Mowas and make claims that many can't be descended from a small group of ancestors.
I give you the example of the Munsees I work with making a population recovery over a 200 year period after the Gnadenhutten Massacre
of 1782 as a comparitive example to refute your denials. I compare the small group of surviving Munsees with the small group of original
Mowa Native American ancestors and their current recovered populations. It's not that far off a comparison requiring your facial icons
as sarcasm. Kiowas had a calendar. As far as written rolls go, what I said was right. What I said had nothing to do with any of the
examples of pre contact record keeping by indigenous peoples which I acknowledge but it's nice that you twisted it like that.
The Mowas had paper evidence of ancestry through the trading agency that Young Gaines had in that part of the original Choctaw
Nation through records of tribal people buying and trading. Young Gaines ended up moving over into the part of Mississippi where
my ancestors lived in 1805. I love how someone like you wrongly judges someone because they have a desire to learn as much
as they can because It was never mentioned in school. It's not about out-indianing somebody as you so subtlely imply.
I was a student of history at a young age. My parents took me to the Poverty Point Mounds as a ten year old in 1980.
I'm used to dealing with non-Indians who don't know our histories. What you say about me doesn't bother me because
I've been to the 185 year old home of my ancestors south of Richton, MS in the Tiak chaha and I know who I am.
anumpa okpulo doesn't bother me.

[tuschkahouma]

I spend thirty to forty minutes a day practicing Chahta anumpa so I guess I'm not Choctaw. Keyu, okpulo fehna. When I've had a Cherokee
langauge instructor at Haskell walk up to my father in a Kentucky Fried Chicken store and say your son fights the good fight for us I guess
I'm not Indian. When I see a bunch of complete strangers use an innaccurate BIA finding to slander people whom I've known as Indian
most of my life and I confront them with the shortfallings of that document and they keep insisting on the truths of inaccuracy and in turn
slander me and I show comparitive examples that have been commended by a mentor of mine and fellow Choctaw person at Haskell
I couldn't be Indian, no way. The Mowas have Choctaw language classes at Calcedeaver School and students attending Choctaw
Central High School at Pearl River in MS, and there will be Mowa Choctaws at Bacone College, and there will be a pow-wow
in October. The BIA was wrong and you can be wrongheaded also.