Gideon Lincecum
Encyclopedia
American pioneer
American pioneers are any of the people in American history who migrated west to join in settling and developing new areas. The term especially refers to those who were going to settle any territory which had previously not been settled or developed by European or American society, although the...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, philosopher, and naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
. Lincecum is known for his exploration and settlement of what are now the U.S. states of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
. Lincecum had good relations with American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
as he explored the wilderness in the American Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
. He was son of Hezekiah and Sally (Hickman) Lincecum, and was born in Warren County, Georgia
Warren County, Georgia
Warren County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created on December 19, 1793. As of 2000, the population was 6,336. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 5,908...
, on April 22, 1793. Lincecum was self-educated. He spent his boyhood principally in the company of Muskogees. After successive moves, he and his wife, the former Sarah Bryan, moved in 1818 with his parents and siblings to the Tombigbee River
Tombigbee River
The Tombigbee River is a tributary of the Mobile River, approximately 200 mi long, in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Alabama. It is one of two major rivers, along with the Alabama River, that unite to form the short Mobile River before it empties into Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico...
above the site of present Columbus, Mississippi
Columbus, Mississippi
Columbus is a city in Lowndes County, Mississippi, United States that lies above the Tombigbee River. It is approximately northeast of Jackson, north of Meridian, south of Tupelo, northwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and west of Birmingham, Alabama. The population was 25,944 at the 2000 census...
.
While living among the Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, he recorded their legends and traditions in the Choctaw language
Choctaw language
The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family...
. After moving to Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, he translated it to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as the Chahta Tradition.
He sought a new frontier in 1868 and, at the age of seventy-six, with a widowed daughter and her seven children, joined a Confederate colony
Confederate colonies
Confederate colonies were made up of emigrants from the Confederate States of America who fled the United States after the Union won the American Civil War . They settled in many Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico.-Background:...
in Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. He died on November 28, 1874 after a long illness at his Long Point, Texas
Long Point, Texas
Long Point is an unincorporated area in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States.-Education:Long Point is located in the Needville Independent School District. Needville High School serves the community.-External links:* Handbook of Texas...
, home.
Historian
Lincecum had contact with ChickasawChickasaw
The Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
, Creek (Muscogee), and Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
before the Indian Removal
Indian Removal
Indian removal was a nineteenth century policy of the government of the United States to relocate Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river...
s of the 1830s began. He learned how to speak and write their languages, learned about their medicine, and recorded their history. Lincecum frequently visited an elderly Choctaw man named Chahta Immataha, who gave him a detailed account of Choctaw oral history. Historian Patricia Galloway notes that Lincecum's "narrative is not reliable."
Naturalist
Lincecum was a self-taught naturalist. Lincecum would spend "countless hours observing birds, insects, weather, rocks, and plants. He regularly corresponded with like-minded individuals, including Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
on two occasions. He published numerous articles in scholarly scientific journals and came to be recognized as a thorough and respectable researcher, in spite of his lack of formal education."
Works
- “Autobiography of Gideon Lincecum”, Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. 8 (1905), 443-519.
- “Choctaw Traditions about Their Settlement in Mississippi and the Origin of Their Mounds.”Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. 8 (1904), 521-542.
- “Life of Apushimataha.” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. 9 (1906), 415-485.
- "Pushmataha: A Choctaw Leader and His People." Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
- Science on the Texas Frontier: Observations of Dr. Gideon Lincecum, Edited by Jerry Bryan Lincecum, Edward Hake Phillips, and Peggy A. Redshaw. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1997.
- Traditional History of the Chahta Nation, Translated from the Chahta, Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas, 1861.