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Title
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Quieting the Ghosts: How the Choctaws and Chickasaws Stopped Fighting
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Date
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2017
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Bibliographic Citation
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O'Brien, Greg. 2017. Quieting the Ghosts: How the Choctaws and Chickasaws Stopped Fighting. In The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies edited by Tim Alan Garrison and Greg O’Brien, pp. 47-69. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
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annotates
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This chapter in The Native South explores the dynamics of intertribal diplomacy between Native American nations. O’Brien (2017:47) argues that the peace between the Choctaw and Chickasaw following the Seven Years’ War was created “on their own terms, and not at the behest of shifting European powers.”. O’Brien describes the cultural aspects of warfare for the Choctaw, including the need to avenge those killed by other tribes and the role of women in demanding such reprisals. He then chronicles the Choctaw-Chickasaw conflicts from the early 1700s through the 1770s. Importantly, O’Brien shows that diplomatic efforts to secure peace between the tribes began at the start of the Seven Years’ War, not after its conclusion, with Fort Toulouse and Alabama villages serving as meeting places throughout the war. These overtures, O’Brien states, were motivated by a desire amongst some Choctaw leaders to secure British goods in addition to French trade. While diplomacy between the Choctaw and Europeans has often been covered, studies on inter-tribal diplomacy are harder to come by, and O’Brien’s chapter adds to the body of work that centers Choctaw and Native agency in their narratives.