Social Barriers

Did You Know?

The MOWA Choctaw people were misidentifed as “Cajan” for many decades.

As the story goes, in the 1880s, a local state senator, L.W. McRae recognized that the Indian community was distinct from their white and black neighbors and set out to distinguish them easily. Not recognizing that they were Indigenous people, he settled on calling them “Cajan” assuming they were somehow related to the Lousiana “Cajuns” of Acadian decent. Although the MOWA Choctaw vehemently disputed this misconception, the term stuck.

They mythologizing of south Alabama’s Cajan’s was further secured in the 1920’s when University of Alabama professor Carl Carmer traveled around the area collecting stories for his book Stars Fell on Alabama. He published several responses from white residents living in Citronelle discussing the origin of the so-called ‘Cajans.’

“Them Cajans sprung up right out/n the ground. Some say they come from animals - coons and fozes and such-like - but that ain’t right. Just sprung up out’n the ground.” “There’s a kind of legend, you know, that the Cajans don’t live anywhere - they just come to town out of no place.”

Following Carmer’s publication, a flood of articles and papers were published about the community, not only referring to them as ‘Cajans’ but a tri-racial isolate group to be studied by anthropologists. This was even captured in a 1948 Smithsonian Institution report description of the ‘Cajun’ Indians of southwest Alabama.

While such an erroneous descroption of the communiti’s identity has endured through the yearas, tribal leaders have been consistent in their message: “Today, I am Choctaw. my mother was Choctaw. My Grand-father was Choctaw. Tomorrow, I will still be Choctaw.” - Leon Taylor (1991)