Caveats

          Firstly I want to apologize for spending so much time on these stories about the Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes. It hasn't been easy for me either. The stories are so heartrending it's depressing to spend the time it takes to do the research about them, but each tribe's removal was different, and I wanted to give you a feel for the magnitude of the tragedy. Before I finish with the story of the Chickasaw Removal there are a few things I want to make clear to anyone who has had the interest to read these stories up to this point.

1. I'm not an impartial observer. I have feelings about these events. I've heard about the Removal all my life, and those feelings have grown stronger the more I've read about the subject.

2. I'm not a historian. While I have been careful to follow my sources in reporting the stories, I'm sure that a professional historian could take issue with some of the details. Also when I've been aware of alternate versions of the same event I've just picked the one that seems to me to best fit the situation.

3. There are a lot more details to these stories than I've been able to tell, just like there is more to the Removal than the story of the Chickasaws. That's why I tried to tell about each of the Five Civilized Tribes, but even that is not enough. There is so much more to each story that it's overwhelming, not just in the number of facts, but in the mass of suffering: the outrage, the cruelty, the hardship, the waste of life, the destruction. And even with the mass of information we have, there are virtually no accounts written by the Indians themselves. What it was actually like for the 60,000 or so Indians who made the 400 - 800 mile journey, we can never imagine.

4. In the accounts you read about the Removal, some individuals get to cast in a negative light, for instance William McIntosh of the Creeks, Greenwood Leflore of the Choctaws, and the "treaty party" of the Cherokees. I want to apologize for going along with those characterizations. I truly believe that these men tried to do right by their people. On the other hand I have no apologies for my characterization of Andrew Jackson. In my opinion he was one of the most prejudiced, and ruthless men in history.

5. There's another caveat which I'll make in advance. I have been raised by my mother with a respect, with a kind of awe for the Chickasaws, and I'm sure that comes out in my writing. I make no excuses for that. I'm proud of my heritage.

Choctaw and Chickasaw Origins

I think that it's important for us to realize that the various Indian tribes of North America each had very complex cultures. They had histories and traditions which had been handed down for many years. Each tribe spoke a separate language so that they needed interpreters to translate for them.  Some tribes had lived in their domains for centuries, they had holy places that they honored, and they believed the spirits of their ancestors still dwelled nearby.

There were conflicts between tribes, but over the years the Indians developed traditions for dealing with each other: traditions for handling disputes and traditions for maintaining the peace. These systems worked for the Indians, and maintained a balance between the literally hundreds of tribes native to the North American continent.

The white men's coming totally disrupted the Indians' world. Many tragedies were caused by the contact between cultures, some of which we know about and most of which we don’t. What we do know comes mostly from the writings of white men, who had no understanding or respect for the people they were writing about. The Indians themselves had only an oral history, much of which is considered legend and much of which has been forgotten.

There's a benefit, I believe, in hearing the story of the Indians. For society, learning to appreciate the beauty and the humanity of these people who were pushed aside to satisfy the greed of so called civilized men, can hopefully provide society with better goals for the future. For Native Americans, learning about our ancestors can give us pride and inspiration.

I started the history of the Removal with the story of the Seminoles. They were actually the last to complete their removal, but their struggles began so early, and went on for so long, it just seemed right to begin with them.

The next tribe I want to talk about is the Choctaws. The Choctaws and my tribe, the Chickasaws, are closely related; their languages are almost the same, and their histories have been interconnected since their beginnings. 

Probably most well known legend among the two tribes concerns their origins:

The Choctaws and the Chickasaws began as one tribe. This tribe's original home was far to the west, beyond the Mississippi River. They were content there until a powerful enemy came and made war on them. After many years of war the tribal council met to deliberate on the matter.

The wise men of the council discussed their dilemma and they sought guidance from Ubabaneli the creator. Finally it was decided that the tribe would never have peace unless they moved far away. 

Ubabaneli gave them the Kohta Falaya, or "long pole" to guide them on their journey. Each evening they were to drive the Kohta Falaya straight into the ground, and the next morning they were to travel in the direction it leaned. Ubabaneli told the people that when the Kohta Falaya remained straight, they would know they had reached their new home.

Ubabaneli also gave the tribe a large white dog to protect them on their journey. As they travelled, the dog would scout the trail ahead warning them of enemies. When anyone became sick or was injured the white dog would come and lick the afflicted person and make him well.

The tribe travelled in two groups each led by a chief. The two chiefs were named Chikasa and Chahta and they were brothers. Each morning the groups would travel separately in the direction indicated by the Kohta Falaya, and each evening they would gather together again. After the people had travelled for many months they arrived at a great river they called Misha Sipokoni, which means "beyond all age."

At first the people thought they had come to the end of their journey, but the next morning the pole still leaned eastward, so they set about building rafts, and soon they were crossing the river. When the rafts reached the middle of the river, the one carrying the big white dog capsized, and although the people were rescued, the dog was swept downstream. They never saw him again.

After resting on the other side of the Misha Sipokoni the brothers continued their journey towards the east. One morning when they came to see the Kohta Falaya, it was swaying back and forth. This had never happened before. When the swaying stopped the two chiefs examined the pole but they could not agree on its position.  Chief Chahta thought it stood straight, but Chief Chikasa believed that the pole still leaned to the east.

When no agreement could be reached, Chief Chikasa pulled the Kohta Falaya from the ground and led his people on. Chief Chahta and his followers remained where they were. They called the place Nanih Waya, or "leaning mountain."

Chief Chikasa continued to follow the Kohta Falaya until it stood straight again about 100 miles to the north. He and his people stopped there and built a town which became known as Oklah Sepokny or "Old Town."  

From that time on those who remained with Chief Chahta were called Chahtas, or Choctaws, those who followed Chief Chikasa were called Chikasas, or Chickasaws. Nanih Waya is located in Winston County, Mississippi, and remains to this day the Choctaws' holiest place. The Chickasaws' Oklah Sepokny or "Old Town" is now included in an urban development.

Removal, The Seminoles

                             Osceola,

               Painting by George Catlin, 1838

It was March 27, 1814. The Tennessee militia, 5000 strong plus several hundred Indian allies, attacked a settlement of 1000 Creek Indians at a point along the Tallapoosa River called Horseshoe Bend. With no mercy the militiamen killed over 800 Creek Indians, the greatest slaughter of Native Americans in history. Among the littered bodies was a mother who lay across her child to protect him.

The name of the commander of the Tennessee Militia responsible for this slaughter was Andrew Jackson, who, as President of the United States would later drive the Seminoles from their homelands. The child's name was Osceola, destined to lead the Seminoles in their struggle against removal.

The nucleus of the Seminole tribe was the Oconee, who lived in the southern Georgia area prior to 1700. The group was first referred to as Seminole, which means 'runaway' in Creek, in the mid 1700's after they had migrating to Spanish Florida to avoid the encroachment of their lands by British settlers. They were joined there by the remnants of the Yamassee tribe which was almost wiped out in 1715 by the British colonists. During the next hundred years the Seminoles were also joined by escaped negro slaves, and by groups of Creek Indians also fleeing the settlers. Among the latter was Osceola's mother, who with her son and about 1000 other Creeks sought refuge among the Seminoles in 1814.

Over the years Georgia plantation owners made repeated raids into Seminole villages in Spanish Florida in search of "runaway slaves," kidnapping anyone of negro descent. The Seminoles in turn made raids on Georgia settlements.

In 1818, after an exchange of attacks across the Florida border by US government forces and Seminoles, Andrew Jackson, now a general, was given permission by President Madison to invade Florida. He went in with 4000 troops, advancing to Pensacola, destroying Seminole villages as he went. This became known as the First Seminole War.

Unhappily, Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1819, and the treaty was ratified in 1821, bringing the Seminoles under US jurisdiction. Almost immediately settlers began pouring into Florida and demanding that the Seminoles be evicted from the choice farm land where they lived. In 1823, the Seminoles were forced to move into a swampy area east of Tampa Bay that was almost uninhabitable. Soon they were starving.

By 1828 when Andrew Jackson was elected president, settlers were clamoring for more land. Many Indians had already moved to the "Indian Territory" west of Arkansas. and in 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress, making it official government policy to remove the Indian tribes from their native lands east of the Mississippi River, and giving the President authority to force them to go.

The Seminoles, barely surviving in the swamps of Florida, and still subjected to raids by the greedy Georgians looking for cheap slaves, signed a treaty in 1832, promising to exchange their land in Florida for land in Indian Territory if the land was found to be suitable by the tribe. 

Later in 1832 the Seminoles sent a party west to look at their new home. When the exploring party arrived, they discovered that the land they were being offered was located between the Creeks and the Osages who were at war. The next year another exploring party was sent. The situation in Indian Territory had become more stable and the Seminoles were satisfied with their location, but they were not authorized to make a decision for the tribe. Nevertheless, they were pressured into signing another treaty in which they agreed to accept the land chosen for them.

When the exploring party returned, the tribal leaders were incensed over being tricked. The black members of the tribe, who were very influential, objected to the original treaty which incorporated the Seminoles into the Creek tribe. They feared that the Creeks would demand they be turned over as slaves.  

The treaty allowed three years for the removal to take place. Since the Seminole leaders had never approved the treaty, they made no effort to comply. In 1835 when the time for removal had expired, the government agent, Wiley Thompson, read a letter from President Jackson to Seminole leaders, informing them that if they refused to migrate willingly, they would be removed by force.

During the years since the removal treaty had been signed, a new leader had arisen among the Seminoles, Osceola. Not only had Osceola witnessed the Creek massacre at Horseshoe Bend as a child, he had lost his negro wife in a slave raid as an adult, and he had been thrown into chains by the Seminole agent for speaking out. Osceola continued to speak out, and by 1835 most of the Seminoles supported him.

  

For Osceola, agent Thompson's threat to remove the Seminoles by force was the last straw. Osceola killed Thompson himself, along with several employees of the agency. Charley Emathla, a Seminole chief who had signed the removal treaty was also killed. On the same day another band of Seminoles attacked a company of government troops on their way to enforce the removal. Out of 110 soldiers, there were only 3 survivors. Thus began the second Seminole War.

The war had the overwhelming support of the Seminole people and their chiefs. Osceola sent a letter to General Clinch, in charge of US troops:

 You have guns, and so have we - you have men, and so have we - your men will fight, and so will ours, until the last drop of Seminole blood has moistened the dust of this hunting ground.

When the first group of 1100 US troops was sent to Florida to quell the rebellion, Osceola's warriors pinned them down for 10 days, forcing them to kill their horses for food. The Indians then asked for a truce, saying they were tired of fighting. General Gaines, commander of the army troops, thinking that the Indians had given up, sent the volunteer portion of his forces home.

Two chiefs, with about 400 of their followers, asked to be transported west. The rest of the Seminoles moved their families into the swamps and prepared to fight.

The Seminoles held out against the US Army for the next seven years. Their villages were burned; their crops were destroyed and their livestock was sold. Small groups of warriors would emerge to attack army units, only to melt back into the forest. When the soldiers waded into the swamps to follow the Indians, they were rarely able to make contact.

Over the years the Seminoles learned to survive in the marshes. They killed small game and fished. They crushed the native coontie root to make flour for bread, and they boiled the palmetto palms for cabbage, and ate the palmetto fruit. But the Indians suffered from constantly hiding and being on the run. 

One army officer described the conditioin of a group of Seminoles who came in to meet with General Macomb in the spring of 1839: 

"The men were destitute of clothing other than a buckskin shirt; and the women and children were almost in a state of nudity. Those who had covering were wropped up in old forage bags, picked up in the vicinity of abandoned posts; they were truly objects of commisseration."

One by one the Seminole chiefs surrendered with their people and were shipped out to join their brethren in Indian Territory, some in chains. The Indians, most of whom were already ill, were given inadequate care and supplies. They arrived in Indian Territory without clothing to shield them from the cold climate. About 20% of the migrating Indians died in route.   

General Jesup who was being criticized in the popular press for his failure to round up the Seminoles, became totally unscrupulous in his dealings with them. He allowed slave traders to select slaves from among the Seminole negroes who had surrendered, which was expressly prohibited by a treaty he had personally negotiated. He also hired Creek warriors to go on slave raids, promising freedom to negroes who would help him search for the Seminoles hiding in the swamps, and selling the rest into slavery. 

Jesup captured Seminoles who came in to parley under a flag of truce. He captured the principal Seminole Chief Mikanopi in this way and finally Osceola. This failure to abide by the time honored rules of war was even criticized in the white press.

In the fall of 1837, John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, who were having troubles of their own over the government's removal policy, offered to go to Florida to help pursuade the Seminole leaders to end their futile struggle. He and a group of Cherokee leaders followed Seminole representatives deep into the swamp for a meeting. As a result a large band of Seminoles who were assembled in hopes of a settlement were captured and made prisoners by General Jesup.

Incensed over being used as a tool for Jesup's treachery, John Ross appealed unsuccessfully to the Secretary of War for the Indians to be released.

A group of Army Generals, disgusted by the prolonged struggle, met with General Jesup to pursuade him to give up his struggle for this Florida swampland, and as a result, Jesup wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, asking for an end to the fighting: 

In regard to the Seminoles, we have committed the error of attempting to remove them when their land is not required for agricultural purposes; when they were not in the way of white inhabitants...As a soldier, it is my duty, I am aware, not to comment upon the policy of the Government, but to carry it out in accordance with my instructions... My decided opinion is, that unless immediate emigration be abandoned, the war will continue for years to come. 

The Secretary replied that he was powerless to suspend operations. 

Meanwhile, Osceola, who had inspired and led the Seminoles in their struggle, lay dying in prison. George Catlin, the famous artist, came to Ft. Moultrie to make a portrait of this valiant warrior. Osceola's wives brought him his ceremonial garb and he carefully painted his face with war paint and sat for the artist. He posed for four days, and then on the fifth day, January 30, 1838, unable to lift himself from the floor, Osceola died.    

After the death of Osceola, the US Army carried on the Seminole war for another three years. More chiefs gave up their struggle to continue their miserable existence in the Florida swamps. Those who surrendered were forced to leave without possessions. Their livestock, and their ponies had been sold. Their fields and homes had been burned. Many died as they were being transported as captives and deposited at Ft. Gibson in Indian Territory. The survivors stayed near the fort, dependant on the meager rations provided by the Army, and unable to move to their assigned lands because those areas had already been settled by Creeks. Several hundred Seminoles never surrendered, and the descendants of these proud people still live in the Florida Everglades.

The Seminoles lost about 40% of their population in the war and in the removal, but the survivors persisted in their struggle for sovereignty. Finally in 1856 the Seminoles were assigned their own domain in Indian Territory and were allowed to form their own government, independant from the Creek Nation.  

Chickasaw Culture and Beliefs, Continued

I want to explain a little more about the Chickasaw beliefs and concepts that Smith Paul would have learned during the time he lived with them in Mississippi. I've already explained the Chickasaw clan system and the changes in society brought about by dependence on manufactured goods and the move from villages to farms. My last post was about the Chickasaws' belief in a spirit world exemplified by the legend of the owl.

In addition to the spirits of the animals, there were other creatures who lived in the forest but were not as easy to see. Perhaps the most important of these were the "Little People." The Little People would sometimes help those in trouble or play tricks on those who offended them. They  interacted most often with children. Sometimes a child would be chosen to live among the little people for a while. During this time the child would be given special powers of healing. When the child grew up, he or she would become a healer or herbal doctor. Healers could not teach or impart their skills to others because their magic came from the Little People. To my knowledge there are no Chickasaw healers alive today. The last one I'm aware of died 20 or 30 years ago.

Clan or family loyalty was at the foundation of Chickasaw society. One tradition which illustrates this is the "Green Corn Festival." This tradition may not have been widely practiced at the time Smith Paul came to live with the Chickasaws, but he would surely have known of it. The Green Corn Festival was an annual meeting of each clan or village. Since clans were basically extended families you could think of the Green Corn Festival as a kind of family reunion. There was feasting, dancing and games. The chief or patriarch of the family would speak, or rather his "speaker" would speak for him (chiefs communicated with their tribes through their speakers), generally encouraging his people to be more generous and hospitable. Those who had done good during the year were praised and those who had transgressed were shamed. After the festival all wrongs were forgiven and each person was allowed to start the year afresh.

These ideas of the community as a family, and family responsibility for its members was something ingrained in Chickasaw thinking. As a logical extension of this concept, the family was responsible for educating children. A child's aunts and uncles were traditionally responsible for the child's early education - aunts for the girls and uncles for the boys - and as the children grew older, the tribes' elders took part. In the same way a family was responsible for its members' actions. For instance, if a person guilty of a crime didn't appear for his punishment, a family member took his place. If a person was guilty of acts harmful to the tribe it was up to his family to punish him.

The Chickasaws' customs and concepts were developed over the centuries and they were well suited to a people living in small groups depending on each other for survival. The spirits that fortified them in hard times and punished them if they did wrong supported them emotionally. Their custom of organizing society into family groups strengthened their loyalty to their village or clan. The harshest punishment for the Chickasaws was ostracism. According to one source it was a "punishment more to be dreaded by all Indians than a hundred deaths."

Another Chickasaw concept that was ideally suited to a society of small clan units was the belief that property should be held in common, and excess shared. The Indians just took this idea for granted, so early in the history of Indian-white interactions, Indians would sometimes go into a shop and pick up things without paying for them, considering them excess. It was also a customary sign of respect when meeting with someone of a different tribe to offer gifts, and to continue exchanging gifts if each party wanted to maintain peace. Some white traders and government officials ignored this custom in their early dealings with the Indians and suffered the consequences.

To the Indians a person's value consisted of what he could contribute to the tribe, not what he possessed, so they weren't concerned with amassing wealth or conversely in running up debt. Thomas Jefferson used this concept to the government's advantage, by building a network of government run trading posts and encouraging the Indians to go into debt. This way the government could force the Indians to cede their land to the government in order to pay off the debt.

That's where the mixed blood and intermarried white portion of the Chickasaw tribe differed from the full bloods. According to Chickasaw custom, the land in their domain belonged to the tribe. An individual could use as much as he needed, but upon his death, ownership reverted to the tribe. This concept was firmly held by the full blood portion of the tribe, but many of the mixed bloods and intermarried whites aspired to amass wealth just like the white settlers. In fact, according to Smith Paul's daughter Sippia (short for Mississippi), "My father was interested in farming, it was always his desire to (go) into the farming business on a large scale." This must have been part of the reason why Smith Paul married into the tribe, and also why he came west with them.  

Smith Paul had been west as far as California with wagon trains twice before the Chickasaw Removal in 1837. He knew then, contrary to the prevalent belief at the time, that the vast area between the Mississippi River and California was not a wasteland. He had travelled through the land where the government planned to send the Chickasaws, and he knew that it contained fertile valleys that could become productive farm land. When the Chickasaws finally decided to accept removal, Smith Paul went home to South Carolina for one last time and said goodbye to his family. While most  Chickasaws were despondent at being forced to leave their homelands in Mississippi, where the spirits of their ancestors rested, Smith Paul went eagerly, full of hope for the future.

This dichotomy between the fullblood Chickasaws and the mixed blood and white intermarried citizens continued. It's not that the mixed blood Chickasaws didn't understand their fullblood brothers. They sympathized with them and they fought to protect them from being cheated by white traders and by the U. S. government, but throughout the years they became wealthier, while the fullbloods became poorer. A clash was inevitable.

Smith Paul's son Sam, my great grandfather, tried in vain to persuade his fullblood brothers to accept the concept of individual ownership of land. He said, "I do not believe we will ever prosper until there is a change in our government - a complete change (including) changing the tenure of our land from a system of community to one of severality." The fullbloods were adament in preserving their ancient system however, and eventually the conflict led to violence, and to Sam Paul's death. 

1820, A Time of Change for the Chickasaws

The last post was about my mother's maternal grandfather, J. T. Rosser, who fought in the Civil War. What I'd like to do now is to go back about 40 years and pick up again the story of Smith Paul, Jim's paternal great grandfather, to give you a picture of the world he stepped into when he joined the Chickasaws in 1820.

At that time the Chickasaws were still living in their homeland in northern Mississippi, although it was considerably smaller due to treaties that ceded large tracts of land to the states of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. 

The Chickasaws had changed a lot during the almost one hundred years since the French Chickasaw Wars. The mixed blood portion of the tribe lived much like their white neighbors. Many were quite wealthy, owning large plantations. Although most of the Chickasaws weren't wealthy, their world had also changed. They now depended on manufactured goods and the money needed to buy them. The fur trade was much less lucrative, and those who still depended on hunting had to travel as far as the Arkansas and Red River valleys to find game. Most Chickasaws now relied on farming to earn their living, the same as the white settlers, and many sold supplies and services to travelers on the Natchez Trace, the main road between white settlements and the ports of Mobile and New Orleans. 

This change from a hunting to a farming economy caused significant changes to the Chickasaws' way of life. The village was less important as the center of the community. Pleasant Porter, Chief of the Creek tribe at the time of the Removal lamented the changes that had taken place:

  

AIn those days they always raised enough to eat, and that was all we wanted. We had little farms, and we raised patches of corn and potatoes, and poultry and pigs, horses and cattle, and a little of everything, and the country was prosperous. In fact in my early life I don=t know that I ever knew of an Indian family that were paupers. There is plenty of them now: there was none then. They were all prosperous and happy and contented in their way, and what more could they want? I say I don=t know of an Indian family in my early life that were paupers. In those days the ones that would be paupers if they lived now stayed with their kin folks and they made them work. Now, back of that the custom of the Creeks was that everybody had to work or live on the town, and the town had taskmasters who took care of him and saw that he worked. There was not a skulker or one who shirked amongst us then; quite different from what it is now. We had a kind of an Arcadian government then. If anyone was sick or unable to work, the neighbors came in and planted his crop, and they took care of it - saw that the fences were all rightBand the women took care of the garden, and wood was got for him, and so on. In fact, everything was done under the care of the peopleBthey did everything and looked after the welfare of everything. The Creek had that much knowledge, that they cared for each other in that way; and while they used to live in towns in Alabama, out here in this peaceful country they had scattered out just like white men, and each one had gone to his farm,...@

Chickasaw society had always been based on family groups or clans. Our clan was the Im-mo-suck-cha, or fish clan. According to historian John Swanton the Im-mo-suck-cha clan were wealthy, and their men were held in high esteem as warriors. Chickasaw society was matriarchal so the clan was determined by the mother. Villages consisted predominantly of one clan. It was forbidden to marry within the same clan, and when a man married, he moved to his wife's village. The responsibility for teaching children rested on maternal aunts for girls, and uncles for boys. Roles for men and women were clearly defined. The men hunted and fought, while the women managed the crops and the household.

Moving away from towns changed all of this. The community was broken up, and with it the support it provided. The men, with no wars to fight and no game to hunt, were left idle. Slowly the men learned to take over the farm work, but it was a difficult change for them, because tilling the fields was traditionally women's work. Many turned to alcohol, which was easy to get from white merchants, even though  it was outlawed by the tribal council.

The traditional Chickasaw government was family or clan based. Villages were led by chiefs who inherited their positions. Sometimes there were also war chiefs who obtained their status by their bravery in battle. Clans varied in their character, some being considered warlike and others peaceful, and there was a rich tradition of legends associated with each clan. The Chickasaws had a central government or "Council" of chiefs, which was called into session periodically by the principal chief, called Minko or King. The last Chickasaw King, Ish-te-ho-to-pa, and the last War Chief, Tishomingo, both lived to come west to Indian territory in 1837 with the tribe

The Chickasaw system of government evolved with changing times. The Chickasaws had a written code of laws by 1929 and a police force. The laws were simple forbidding stealing, murder and drunkenness. There were no jails and no need for them. Even after the Chickasaws moved west to Indian territory those found guilty of a crime were honor bound to report for their punishment even for the death penalty. My grandmother used to be able to point out the location of the "whipping tree," where whippings were given for stealing or drunkenness. According to tradition, if the guilty party failed to report for punishment, a member of his family would suffer the punishment in his stead.

Smith Paul must have grown to love and respect his noble hosts as he watched them confront the challenges they faced.

To be continued...

The French Chickasaw War of 1720

When I graduated from high school we took a family vacation through the southern states, and in Mississippi my mother stopped and showed me the site of the early Chickasaw town of Akia where an important battle had been fought. Years later in 1971, a history professor at the University of Oklahoma, Arrell Gibson, wrote a book about the Chickasaws, and I got a copy. From it I learned that the battle of Akia was the decisive battle in the French Chickasaw War, along with a lot of other fascinating things about our tribe and about our family. That was when I started to share my mother's passion for Chickasaw history. 

The French Chickasaw War is another example which supports the Chickasaw  motto, "Unconquered and Unconquerable." If you know anything about Indian history, this is a surprising claim for any Indian tribe. The story of Native Americans was typically that of one defeat after another, by arrogant, ruthless Europeans. The Indians, naively trusting the promises of foreign representatives, outgunned by superior weapons, and eventually outnumbered by settlers, were not just defeated. They were exiled to remote unwanted areas of the country, where many still live in poverty, clinging to their proud traditions and self respect. 

The history of the Chickasaws is different. The Chickasaws managed to adapt to changing times and often as not came out ahead in their encounters with white culture, both in times of war and in times of peace.

I've already described how Hernando de Soto learned to respect the Chickasaws in 1541, the hard way. It was almost 150 years before the Chickasaws were confronted by the white man again. By 1700 there were English settlements all along the Eastern seaboard, and French settlements to the north in Illinois and Quebec, and to the south in Mobile. The Indian tribes in the Mississippi valley were almost all allied with the French, but not the Chickasaws.

The Chickasaws were different for several reasons. Firstly they had traded with both the French and the British, and had decided that the British goods were better and cheaper. Also they were further inland than most of the tribes so their domain was not yet threatened by settlers. The Chickasaws were acquainted with British traders though, and several traders had even married into the tribe, bringing with them not only an understanding of the English language, but also some savvy in negotiating with Europeans. It was one of these intermarried traders, James Adair, who wrote the most authoritative description of Chickasaw culture during the late 1700's.

The Chickasaws took advantage of their relationship with the British traders, and by 1700 they were well equipped with metal knives, hatchets and rifles. Not only that, they understood the value of the horse. The Chickasaws now raised their own horses and had become expert horsemen. Chickasaw women had replaced their clay pots with metal ones; they used metal hoes for tilling their gardens, and they often dressed in woven fabric instead of animal skins.

The French governor of the Louisianna Province at the time, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, wanted to establish control of the Mississippi River for transporting goods from northern French settlements. Surveying the situation, Iberville came to the conclusion that the only obstacle in his way were the Chickasaws. From their vantage point at the Chickasaw Bluffs near Memphis, Tennessee, the Chickasaws could control traffic down the Mississippi River, and they seemed to have formed an alliance with the British.

In 1702 Iberville invited a Chickasaw delegation to his headquarters in Mobile, where he promised to protect them from attacks by their sister tribe the Choctaws if they would sever their ties with the British. On the other hand Iberville threatened to support the Choctaws and to turn the other tribes in the region against them if they refused. The Chickasaws thanked the French for their protection and returned to their homes.

One of Iberville's tactics for securing control of the various Indian tribes was to send missionaries to live among them. The missionaries could then report back on the tribe's activities. So after the Mobile council, Iberville sent a missionary to the Chickasaws, a young man named St. Michel. When St. Michel didn't report back as planned, the Choctaws, trying to stir up trouble, told the French that the Chickasaws had killed him. The Chickasaws responded by returning St Michel safe and sound, thereby foiling the French plans to spy on them.   

The Chickasaws did continue to trade with the French, but at the same time they increased their trade with the British, because they preferred their goods. Besides that, trade with the French became more and more difficult. In order to reach Mobile, the Chickasaws had to cross the Choctaw domain risking attack by their enemies, or travel a long circuitous route. They tested the French promise to protect them from the Choctaws by asking for an escort for one of their trading parties, but the Choctaws attacked the party anyway and several Chickasaws were killed.

During the next 18 years tensions grew between the Chickasaws and the French. The French were frustrated that their threats had not disrupted the Chickasaws' relationship with the British, and the harrassment of Chickasaw traders by the Choctaws continued. The Chickasaws began to suspect that the attacks were inspired by the French. In 1720 the Chickasaws discovered a Frenchman they believed to be spying on them and put him to death. They then proceeded to shut down French traffic on the Mississippi River at the Chickasaw Bluffs, and to make raids on French settlements further south.

The French didn't feel they had enough troops to engage in an all out war with the Chickasaws, so they hired Choctaw mercenaries to do their fighting for them. The Choctaw attacks not only failed militarily, the Chickasaws started using diplomacy, telling the Choctaws they should trade with the British also. So in 1720, after four years of a failed war and isolation from their northern settlements, alarmed that they might soon lose the support of the Choctaws, the French suspended their war against the Chickasaws. Trade was resumed between the French and the Chickasaws, and the Mississippi River was reopened to French traffic.

The Louisianna Council of War decided that the Chickasaws had been "sufficiently punished" and the "honor of France" sustained, but Jean Baptiste Le Moyne d'Bienville, who had replaced Iberville as governor before the war, decided that the Chickasaws, because of their obstinacy, would remain a problem. Bienville started making plans to build up French forces for an attack on the Chickasaws that would wipe them off the map.   

To be continued.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Smith Paul Joins the Chickasaws

There's some question about how old my great great grandfather Smith Paul was when he left home to join the Chickasaws. The story that Uncle Haskell told was that shortly after Smith's mother Tamsey died in about 1820, Smith left his home in Beard's Creek, N.C., and went to live with the Chickasaw Indians in Mississippi. The reason Haskell gave for his great grandfather's decision was that his father had remarried and he didn't like his stepmother. Smith would have been eleven years old at the time.

I assume that Haskell got this story from his uncle Buck who was Smith Paul's grandson and might have heard the story from Smith himself, but there's a problem with the story. Uncle Haskell found out through some North Carolina relatives that Rhesa Paul, Smith's father, didn't remarry until 1827, so if Smith left home because of his stepmother, he would have left seven years later, when he was 18. Of course Smith might have left when his mother died for other reasons. Perhaps he didn't want to be a burden on his father, or maybe the woman who caused him to leave wasn't the woman his father eventually married.

I'm not sure there's a way to resolve the issue, but I prefer to believe that Smith Paul was adopted by the Chickasaws at the age of eleven and raised with other Indian boys his age, learning to track game in the forest, to use a bow and arrow, and to play stick ball, the traditional Indian game that inspired the modern game of Lacrosse. I have always imagined him doing these things, and also sitting around the fire in the evenings with the other children, listening to Indian legends.

Whichever story you believe, Smith Paul did spend at least ten years with the Chickasaws in Mississippi before their removal to Indian Territory, and he would have become intimately acquainted with their culture and their traditions.

Smith Paul's journey from Beard's Creek, on the North Carolina Coast, to the Chickasaw homeland near Tupelo, Mississippi, was a long one, about 400 miles as the crow flies. To induce him to travel so far, Smith Paul must have met a party of Chickasaws along the way who allowed him to accompany them home. Uncle Haskell theorized that Smith Paul may have travelled along the "pigeon trial," an old Indian trail that followed the Pigeon River through Mississippi. The Pigeon River got its name from huge flocks of passenger pigeons that followed the river on their migration west in order to feast on nuts from the beech trees that lined the river's banks.

Passenger pigeons were once the most numerous species of bird in North America. One flock was reported to be as large as a mile wide and 300 miles long! My grandmother told of seeing flocks of passenger pigeons when she was a girl. She said they would darken the sky from horizon to horizon. As remarkable as it may seem, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction, the last bird dying in 1914.

Whichever route Smith Paul took, he eventually arrived at the Chickasaw homeland, a huge area extending east from the Mississippi River across northern Mississippi and Alabama, and western Tennessee. The Chickasaws he found there were prosperous, civilized farmers, with a well organized local and national government, a written code of laws, a police force and a court system. Many of the Chickasaws were educated, either in missionary schools inside the nation or in white schools in the east. The Chickasaws were sociable and hospitable. Some dressed like their white neighbors, but many still wore their traditional costumes: the men with feathers and silver ornaments in their hair and ears, colorful calico shirts, deerskin leggings and moccasins, the women with colorful dresses and ornaments in their hair.

One of the reasons for the Chickasaws' prosperity and their adoption of some features of white civilization was the Natchez Trace. The Natchez Trace was the most heavily travelled road in the west, and it went right through the middle of the Chickasaw Nation. The Trace extended for over 400 miles between Natchez, Mississippi, on the Mississippi River, and Nashville, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River. In negotiations to grant the rights for passage across their territory, the Chickasaws had shrewdly included a provision that prohibited white men from operating businesses within their domain, so all lodging, supplies, transportation, ferries, entertainment, even postal services along the road were provided by the Indians. This gave the Chickasaws considerable income, but it also introduced a large white influence into the Chickasaw society, not necessarily for the good.

At any rate, Smith Paul came to love and respect his Chickasaw hosts, and he decided to stay with them. He eventually went to work for a Presbyterian missionary named McClure who had lived with the Chickasaws for years. McClure had married a Chickasaw woman, Ela Teecha, and they had two children together, Tecumseh and Catherine.

PS: For more background on Smith Paul see Posts: It all started with John Paul Jones, and Back to North Carolina.

Roots

Pauls Valley Depot Museum


Last week I drove down to Oklahoma to collect the proceeds from my mother's estate sale and to make plans to sell her house. The sale was a great success according to my agents, but I still felt a little like Judas, selling Jim's priceless memories for a few dollars.

Jim's house is empty now. I did save a few things, but most of her possessions, the accumulation of almost 100 years, is gone. As I looked at the bare walls I kept thinking of things I wish I had saved. She had a huge picture of a group of horses with their trainers hanging in front of her entranceway. She said a copy of the painting hung at the head of the stairs in Mamma's house when she was little. I didn't keep it because I thought it was too big to hang in our house. I also wish I had saved a large statue of a horse that Jim had antiqued, and the pictures she brought back from Mexico, the figurines from China, and the porcelain birds.

With nothing to keep me in Oklahoma City, I decided to drive down to Pauls Valley, where Jim was born and where Mamma and Uncle Haskell lived their lives. I've wanted to go down there again for some time, to visit the museum and the library, and to go through their collection of pictures and documents about our family. During the last several years I visited Jim fairly often, but my time was limited, and I didn't want to take away from my time with her to make side trips.

So on the second day of my trip, after I had spoken with the builder and the estate sale agent, I took off for Pauls Valley. It only takes about an hour to get there on the interstate. Pauls Valley is a beautiful little town. Its streets are lined with big oak, maple and pecan trees, and its gardens are filled with flowers. Few people go through town nowadays because it's about a mile off the freeway, so there aren't very many cars on the streets. The pace of life there is slow and the people are friendly, even before they find out you're a Paul.

I went to the museum first. It's located in the old railroad depot. That's really appropriate because the railroad created Pauls Valley. Back in 1887 when the M. K. and T. ran their tracks through Indian Territory, White Bead was the main town in the area, but Sam Paul, my great grandfather, had the foresight to offer some of his land for the depot and townsite, and Pauls Valley soon eclipsed White Bead, which now consists of only a few houses.

When I walked into the museum I found Adrienne Grimmett manning the desk. Adrienne has been the main force behind the Pauls Valley Historical Society ever since my uncle Haskell passed away. Adrienne generously spent most of the afternoon with me, explaining the exhibits and showing me her files about the Paul family. The walls of the museum are covered with pictures of my ancestors, many of them donated by my mother. My grandparents and great grandparents are there, along with many great aunts, uncles and cousins. The museum has a portrait of my great grandmother that I had never seen before. As I looked at photographs of the old pioneers I recognized many of the names from stories my mother has told me. Also on display is a remarkable piece of needlework done by my grandmother.




Old Smith Paul Home now owned by Jonathan Grimmett

Origianal hand hewn log beams

Adrienne was kind enough to show me through the old Smith Paul home, now owned by her son Jonathan. Smith Paul, my great great grandfather, originally built the house in 1872, and he lived there until 1875 when he moved to California. Smith Paul's son Sam, my great grandfather, lived in the house until his death in 1891. Since Sam was prominent in Chickasaw politics, his home was visited by many of the leaders of the time. On one occasion a meeting of the Five Civilized Tribes was held at the Paul home with Sam serving as translator.

After Sam Paul's death the house suffered a severe fire which destroyed the second floor but the fortress like rock walls remained standing. The house was rebuilt afterward and remodelled several times by several owners. Adrienne's parents, Mr. and Mrs. M. J. Ewart, bought the house in the early 40's, and her family has owned it ever since. Previous owners added indoor plumbing, but when the Ewarts first moved in, the only stairway to the second floor was outdoors. Adrienne said that until a stairway could be built, her brother had to go outside to get to his bedroom.

The house as it appears now is a majestic structure, sitting on Jackson Hill overlooking the valley. The original house was even larger than it is now. The walls are a double layer of rock, two feet thick. When the Ewarts decided to add a room, they had to use dynamite to break down the original stone wall! In the basement you can see the original log beams that support the house, and the hand forged nails that hold them together. The beams still have some bark on their sides, and the top and bottom surfaces still show the cut marks of the adze used to flatten them. Some vestiges of the past were found between the beams in the late 50's when the Ewarts replaced the flooring: a knife, a clay pipe, an old doll. There are legends that Smith Paul buried gold under his house, but as of yet no treasure has been found.

On the second day that I visited Pauls Valley I spent several hours in the library looking through their document file and going through several years of newspaper microfilm. The highlight of my trip to the library though was finding the transcript of a long interview with my uncle Haskell. Haskell spent hours talking with our older family members and looking up records. He was a storehouse of information but he hardly wrote anything down. Before this I only had a few pages of information that was transcribed from his notebook. This interview will add a lot to my knowledge.

Rush Creek

Between sessions of looking at documents and pictures I drove around town. It seems to me that the downtown area has run down a little since I was a child. Some of the buildings are vacant and their walls are crumbling in places. A vacant lot is all that remains of the big stone building that had my grandfather's name, W. H. Paul, embossed across its concrete cornice. Adrienne said that it was torn down after it sustained serious fire damage. The old Royal Theater where my mother and her brother Bob used to watch silent movies is still in operation. My uncle Haskell's house looks pretty much the same, but a Sonic drive in occupies the former site of my grandmother's home. I went over to Rush Creek, the scene of my mother's "Narrow Escape" - see post for 9/1/10. It had been raining for two days and there was a lot of water flowing down stream, but the banks have been built up since Jim's childhood and the water level was still a long way below the bridge.

I went out to Mt. Olivet, the cemetery where most of the family was laid to rest. There my grandmother and grandfather lay peacefully side by side, after years of conflict and tragedy, surrounded by their children and other family members.

My only disappointment was when I tried to visit the museum at Wynnewood. Wynnewood is just seven miles south of Pauls Valley, near the site of old Cherokee Town, where my mother's other grandfather, J. T. Rosser, settled after migrating from Georgia after the Civil War. Jim set up a Victoria Paul room there in honor of her mother. I've never seen the exhibit in person, only in photographs. It has a sample of Grandmother's painting and one of her charcoals. I know her brass bed is there and also her wedding gown, and some of her hand made lace. the museum was closed for some reason. I'll have to go back another time.

Finally, on the evening of my second day in Pauls Valley, I went by to visit my cousin, Christeen Paul Swinney, who lives in Elmore City, about 25 miles west of Pauls Valley. She was really close to my grandmother, and her husband Vic was my uncle Tom's best friend. We talked long into the night, exchanging stories and reminiscing about the past. The story of my visit with her will have to wait for another time.

Even More Loose Ends

My last few posts have been as disconnected as usual so I'll try to desribe to you the thoughts that were going through my mind that led to such chaos.

After telling how important our heritage was to my mother in "Our Indian Heritage" and "Aristocrats," I wanted to follow up with some details, so I put down most of what I know about my great - great - great - great - great grand uncle, John Paul Jones, the first in a long line of colorful characters in the Paul family.

Just after writing about John Paul Jones I got my copy of the Chickasaw Times which contained my mother's obituary, so I just printed it as the next post. That got me thinking about my mother's last days and how much suffering she went through. She had told me about saying a prayer for her older sister Kaliteyo when she died, the same childhood prayer that they had said together as children before going to sleep. It was also the only thing I could think of to say for Jim when she died.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

It's hard to explain how I felt when my mother died. When I said that prayer for her I had spent the better part of two months sharing her fear, her apprehension, and finally her suffering. During that time, memories or our lives together had been going through my mind, so much to understand, so many questions left unanswered. When it was all over, that overwhelming confusion and tension that I had felt were gone, and in their place was just a gaping hole. I felt so helpless and afraid, like a child. At the time I said that prayer for Jim, it was just as much for me as for her. Finally I understood how she had felt when she had said the prayer for her sister Kaliteyo.

That was about as much writing about Jim's death as I could stand, so I returned to our family's story. The first story that came to mind was the one about Smith Paul running away from home as a small boy, and being taken in by the Chickasaw Indians. I love that story. We don't know many details, but there's so much food for the imagination: The boldness of an eleven year old boy in striking out on his own; the hardships of those relatively primitive times; the incredible distances they traveled on horseback or in a wagon, when 15 or 20 miles was a day's journey; the hospitality of the Chickasaws; the experience of growing up with people of an entirely different culture; how the bonds of friendship and loyalty grew that caused Smith Paul to stay with the Chickasaws and to share their fate.

After telling the beginning of the story of Smith Paul, I just had to write something else about the Chickasaws. I wish I had another life to spend learning more about native American history. While most of what we know is through the writing of white men, the story you can piece together of the native Americans in general, and of the Chickasaws in particular, is fascinating.

In my opinion the Chickasaws' encounter with Hernando De Soto is one of the most incredible stories in history. The Chickasaws, instead of being awed by the advanced technology of the Europeans, were able to see them for the selfish, arrogant bullies they were, and the Chickasaws were able to prevail by using their own native intelligence and ingenuity.

Hernando De Soto

I've been reading about Chickasaw history ever since high school, and in recent years I've been able to get into more detail and put some of my fragments of knowledge into a context. This is something my mother and I enjoyed sharing with each other. She would show me a paper being discussed by the Chickasaw Historical Society, and I'd tell her about stories I had found in my reading.

In general, reading Indian history is a depressing exercise. You read one story after another about the Indians being deceived, robbed, divided against one another, and cruelly slaughtered because of the white man's greed. The story of the Chickasaws, although in the end as tragic as that of the other tribes, has some bright spots, and one of those is the story of their encounter with Hernando De Soto, the Spanish 'Conquistador.'

After successfully subjugating the powerful Incas in Peru as a captain under Francisco Pizarro, De Soto returned to Spain a wealthy hero. He was rewarded by being made governor of Cuba, and from there he was expected to extend Spain's influence across the 'new world' by colonizing North America. Hopefully he would also find some gold along the way.

De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 with nine ships carrying over 600 men, and tons of armor and supplies, including 240 horses and 200 pigs. He quickly developed a system of communicating with the natives by using the survivor of a prior Spanish expedition as an interpreter. De Soto's Spanish interpreter managed to communicate with most of the tribes they encountered by finding members of his adopted tribe among them.

De Soto moved north up the eastern seaboard during 1539 and 1540, leaving a trail of devastation and plunder in his wake. He played on the Indians' superstition by spreading the rumor that he was an incarnation of the sun god. Finally one tribe decided to stand up to De Soto's army, attacking him with several thousand warriors at the town of Mabila in what is now southern Alabama. De Soto slaughtered the warriors, burned the town, and then headed north and west toward the Chickasaws' domain, in what is now northern Mississippi.

When De Soto came to the Tombigbee River, near modern Tupelo, he was impressed with the Chickasaws' extensive fields of maize, and he decided to spend the winter there. After slight resistance at the river De Soto was received hospitably by the Chickasaws, and he chose to treat them more diplomatically than was his habit. His men even accompanied the Chickasaws in a raid on a neighboring tribe.

When spring came though, De Soto reverted to form and demanded that the Chickasaws supply 200 litter bearers, hacking the hands off an unfortunate brave to show that he meant business. The Chickasaws not only said no to the mighty Spaniards, they decided to evict them. The Chickasaw warriors routed De Soto's men in a surprise night attack, sending the Spaniards running for their lives wearing only their underwear. The Chickasaw women also participated in the attack by carrying coals in earthen pots to set the Spaniards' camp afire. De Soto lost a dozen men killed and many wounded, and 60 horses were either killed or captured. The only thing that saved the Spanish from total annihilation was the confusion caused by their stampeding horses, which caused the Chickasaws to fear a mounted counterattack. The Chickasaws lost only one man.

De Soto's men fled to a nearby village where they repaired and replaced their weapons and other equipment as best they could. The Spaniards were able to fight off a second attack by the Chickasaws at their new encampment, and when they had recovered enough to flee north toward the Mississippi River, the Chickasaws pursued them and inflicted more casualties. De Soto crossed the Mississippi and continued his expedition for another two years, but he never messed with the Chickasaws again.

I have always thought this was a remarkable story. The Chickasaws, never numbering more than a few hundred warriors and armed only with primative weapons, managed to defeat a well armed Spanish army which had previously decimated an Indian force of thousands.

The Chickasaws were and are something special, well deserving of their motto: Unconquered and Unconquerable."

Back to New Bern

Actually John Paul Jones wasn't our only family member to fight in the Revolutionary War. John's nephew Jacob was a member of the Virginia Militia. Jacob migrated down to New Bern, North Carolina, after the war, where he began farming. Jacob's son Rhesa settled there too, and in 1808 married Tamsey Whealton. In 1809 Rhesa and Tamsey had a son, and they named him Smith, Smith Paul, my great great grandfather.

Smith was the oldest of nine siblings. His mother Tamsey died in 1819, and Smith, at the age of eleven, left home and joined a band of Chickasaw Indians. He must have had some pretty exciting adventures during this time, but we know very little. What we do know is that New Bern, North Carolina, is on the east coast, and the Chickasaws' homeland in Mississippi is about 400 miles away as the crow flies, too far for an eleven year old boy to travel by himself. I think that Smith must run across a group of Chickasaws on a trading mission.

At any rate, Smith ended up living with the Chickasaws until their forced removal to Indian Territory in 1837, 17 years later, so he spent most of his childhood with them.

The Chickasaws were more influenced by the white culture than many tribes, and by this period in history many were traders and farmers, but the old Chickasaw traditions and culture were still well known and practiced by many. Smith Paul grew up speaking the Chickasaw language, and he would have learned many of the Chickasaw traditions. By the time he decided to go with them to what is now Oklahoma, "Smith Paul was an Indian," as my mother put it.

According to my Uncle Haskell's story, which he got from Uncle Buck, Smith Paul's grandson, Smith made two trips to California with wagon trains before the Removal, so he was familiar with the country west of Mississippi. His daughter, 'Aunt Sippia,' said of him: "My father was interested in farming. It was always his desire to go into the farming business on a large scale."

Apparently Smith Paul saw the Removal as an opportunity to pursue his dream. He had kept in contact with his family through the years, and before his journey west with the Chickasaws he made one last trip home to tell his family of his decision to cast his lot with the Indians.

After saying goodbye to his family, Smith Paul returned to begin the arduous journey which would come to be known as the "Trail of Tears" by the Five Civilized Tribes. Neither he nor his adopted people could have imagined the hardships that were in store for them.

Aristocrats

Ela Teecha and Smith Paul, my great great grandparents

John Paul Jones was only the first in a long line of our family's outstanding members, and my mother began early to teach me about them. After John Paul Jones there was Smith Paul, who ran away from his home in Newbern, NC, at the age of eleven, and was adopted by the Chickasaw Indians. He was Jim's great grandfather. When the Chickasaws were forced to leave their homelands in Mississippi in 1837, Smith came with them to the present state of Oklahoma, on what the Indians called their "Trail of Tears". There he married a full blood Indian woman named Ela Teecha. They raised a family together and Smith became a wealthy farmer. When the railroad was built in 1887, Smith Paul gave up part of his corn field for a town site, and the town was named Pauls Valley in his honor.

As Smith Paul became older, his son Samuel, Jim's grandfather, took over the farm, and became a prominent politician in the government of the sovereign Chickasaw Nation. Sam Paul was assassinated for his political beliefs in 1891, making orphans of his sons, Buck and Jim's father Bill. After statehood Bill became a wealthy real estate broker and Jim's family were prosperous. When I was a child there was a large building in downtown Pauls Valley with Jim's father's name, "W H Paul," engraved into the cornice.

I also learned that Jim's older brother, Homer, had been the youngest man ever to be elected to the Oklahoma state legislature, and that her brother Haskell was a prominent attorney in Pauls Valley.

And that was just the Paul side of the family. Jim's mother was a Rosser, and her 'people' had been wealthy plantation owners from Georgia. 'Grandpa' Rosser had fought for the South during the Civil War, and when the fighting was over he took his young bride and joined the stream of emigrants heading west. Despite the hardships, Grandpa, or "Captain Rosser," as he was known, together with his wife Emily, managed to provide Jim's mother, named Victoria after the English queen, and her four sisters with an education in literature, art, music, and etiquette. The girls were not raised to work but were expected to marry well and become mistresses of an estate. They learned to garden, and to arrange flowers, to crochette and to knit, and to make beautiful dresses and artistic table decorations.

When Victoria fell in love with a handsome Chickasaw Indian, her family was horrified, but they consoled themselves with the knowledge that he was rich. I have a letter to 'Mamma' from her grandmother in Georgia in July of 1898. Grandma Lumpkin - she had married a Lumpkin after Grandpa's father died - commented that 'Pappa' seemed "a fine substantial looking fellow, and strong," admonishing Mamma to "be a very good wife - amiable and sweet tempered, as you will have everything that you desire without having to work and make it."

Jim had been taught that her people were special. Gentility and culture had been bred into them from the Rosser side of the family, and a native toughness and adaptability from the Pauls. I grew up thinking that being a Paul or a Rosser was kind of like being a Kennedy or a Rockefeller. We were all capable of greatness, and if we failed, it was because something had gone terribly wrong.

Well, something went terribly wrong pretty often in our family. Maybe that's why Jim clung so hard to her belief in our nobility.

I eventually questioned Jim's attempt to instill this family pride in me, and I came to view it with a kind of embarrassment. I remember asking her fifteen or twenty years ago why she spent so much time on her scrapbooks. She replied that she was saving things for me, and maybe some day I'd appreciate them.

I don't want to imply that my mother went around with her nose on the top of her head. Jim was very personable, and gregarious. She took an interest in everyone she met, and everyone liked her, but Jim was complicated. She liked or disliked people on different levels. There were people of quality, and people with good qualities, but most important was family. "Blood is thicker than water" was what she used to say.