Our Indian heritage

I remember one day when I was only 5 or 6 years old, I was talking to my mother about cowboys. My heroes at the time were Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autry - for a while I insisted that my mother set a place at the table for Roy. Anyway I was going on about about how the brave cowbows had to fight the Indian savages who attacked innocent settlers on the frontier.

To this my mother replied, "Don't be too quick to blame the Indians. You're part Indian yourself."

Then I started crying, sorry to be related to such hideous monsters.

At that point My mother reassured me that we were Chickasaws, one of the Five Civilized Tribes: Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole, and that we were most certainly not savages. Most of our ancestors were farmers at the time of the settlement of the frontier. She told me that many Chickasaws, including some members of our family, had been prominent citizens, even statesmen.

My mother went on to tell me that as far as the so called "wild Indians" were concerned, they had been the victims instead of the villains on the frontier, driven from their homelands by greedy white settlers. She told how the Indians were also victims of prejudice whether or not they adopted the white man's ways. She said that the Indian tribes had their own customs which served them well before the coming of the white man, and when they fought, it was to preserve their independence and their culture.

I remember the thing that impressed me most as a little boy about this lesson on my heritage, was what my mother said about the Indians' sense of honor. She said that when an Indian committed a crime in the early days (her grandfather's time), he would be told to appear at a certain place, on a certain date for his punishment. The Indians had no jails and no need for them. The guilty person would show up at the appointed place for his whipping - this was the usual penalty - or even for a death sentence.

After that I started rooting for the Indians instead of for the cowboys.