Disruption and Dislocation
"During this era of disruption and dislocation, few written records were left of the ancestral families of the south Alabama Choctaw. Most of their names are unknowable, but some are known because their stories were handed down from generation to generation. Also, several ancestors were involved in treaty making and others traded at the Choctaw Trading House, so their names are recorded. Others are recorded in government records but their presence is documented in accounts by travelers and in oral history. Altogether, these people, known and unknowable, are the ancestors of the MOWA Choctaw " —Jacqueline Matte (2002)
Tecumseh
Surviving the Battle of Fort Mims
Today, the MOWA Choctaw people tell a legendary story of Cecile Weatherford, daughter of Creek warrior William Weatherford, a refugee of the Creek War whose mother (Nancy Fisher) protected her from Fort Mims battle by swimming across the river with the baby on her back.
Cecile went on to have many children with two different husbands already settled in the MOWA Community. Generations of her descendants have told the story of her heroic escape.
Tecumseh Visits the Choctaw (1811)
During the first decades of the 19th Century, many Choctaws moved seasonally to camps outside New Orleans and Mobile so they could sell such items as venison, bear’s oil, baskets, and kindling to the colonial residents.
Visitors and surveyors to Mobile recorded that the forest surrounding Mobile was “full of Indians” (Hamilton, 1830), with a “considerable Village” of the Chucktaw nation of Indians within about a mile of Mobile” (Landreth, 1819)
Tecumseh Visits the Choctaw (1811)
Shawnee leader Tecumseh traveled from the Great Lakes to visit the Choctaws, urging them to join an inter-tribal confederation against the Americans. Chief Pushmataha persuaded most Choctaws not to join the alliance. Forty-five Choctaw warriors did join and allied with the Creeks in their efforts to dispel Americans.
War of 1812 (1812-1815)
The Choctaw Nation provided support to the Americans during this war with Britain, engaging in the Battles of Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans. Pushmataha became a general and fought alongside Andrew Jackson, leading hundreds of Choctaw warriors against the British. However, not all Choctaws were in favor of supporting the Americans, In 1813, the Choctaw warriors who were moved by the call of Tecumseh joined the Creek Nation against the Americans in the Creek War. Following the War of 1810, the Choctaws who joined the Upper Creeks against the Americans remained in southern Alabama, with several accounts describing how the MOWA Choctaws' ancestors survived such rapid change.
Battle of Fort Mims (1813)
The first major battle of the Creek War of 1813-1814 started when a force of about 700 Creek warriors attacked the American stockade erected on the plantation of Samuel Mims near Tensaw Lake (that housed over 400 American settlers, U.S, allied Creeks, and enslaved African Americans. Hundreds of people were killed or taken captive, increasing American hostilities toward the Creeks.
Treaty of St. Stephens (1816)
Represented vows of good will between the U.S. and Choctaw Nation, with the adjustment of boundaries in a small area on the Alabama-Mississippi border.
Mississippi Statehood and Alabama Territory (1817)
Mississippi Territory was reconfigured, creating Alabama Territory and admitting Mississippi to the Union as the twenty-second state.