Red Shoes Choctaw
Encyclopedia
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
chief, who traded with British fur traders based in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
in the 1740s and ignited the Choctaw Civil War. The French countered by arranging the assassination of Red Shoes.
Background
The ChoctawChoctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
Indians once laid claim to millions of acres of land and established some 50 towns in present-day 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 western 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...
. Their population was about 20,000 people scattered in these towns or villages.
The peoples who became known as the Choctaws (Chahtas) originally lived as separate societies throughout east-central Mississippi and west-central Alabama and all spoke dialects of the Muskogean language. The nation, in fact, was a league of independent principalities in which the weaker towns were often attached as dependencies to the stronger.
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
turned upside down and nothing was the same. One leader, Red Shoes, moved to seize the opportunities offered by contact with the Europeans. The French of necessity had intimate dealings with the Choctaw from the time when Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
was first colonized, and the relations between the two peoples were usually friendly. But corruption, mismanagement and lack of supply eventually crippled the Indian trade of French Louisiana
French Louisiana
The term French Louisiana refers to two distinct regions:* first, to colonial French Louisiana, comprising the massive, middle section of North America claimed by France; and,...
.The hunters came away from the trading table with little to show, sometimes even empty handed, after months of hard work to obtain the deer hides and furs. They were angry and disappointed. They naturally looked elsewhere and found better recompense in the Creek and Chickasaw
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
camps of their former enemies. This meant they were actually trading with the English who had sent the Chickasaw and Creek against them. Their leader, Mingo Tchito, turned a blind eye, but he was infuriated when the French could not supply the customary chief's gifts. These developments led to an English party being formed among the Choctaw, partly because the prices charged by the Carolina
The Carolinas
The Carolinas is a term used in the United States to refer collectively to the states of North and South Carolina. Together, the two states + have a population of 13,942,126. "Carolina" would be the fifth most populous state behind California, Texas, New York, and Florida...
traders were lower than those placed upon French goods. This effort was led by noted chief, Red Shoes, and lasted for a considerable time, culminating in his assassination and one of the principal Choctaw towns being burned to the ground before it came to an end with the defeat of the British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
Party in 1750.
Early life
Red Shoes began his adult life as a common warrior. He had no hereditary claim to Choctaw leadership. However, through his exploits as a daring warrior, he earned the distinction of the finest warrior the Choctaws ever produced. In later days it was said; "No one talked of anything but Red Shoes".As a youth Shulush Homa learned that it was necessary to cooperate with the French if one wanted to escape being taken into slavery by the large Chickasaw and Creek raiding parties. They had marched thousands into bondage for the English slave trade, killed thousands more and left the survivors to fend for themselves in a burned out ravaged country.
Leadership role
In the early 1720s the Choctaws waged a fierce war with the Chickasaws, their bitter rivals and enemies. After the taking of many Chickasaw scalps, Shulush Homa stood in Couechitto town and received a new name, Soulouche Oumastabe. Eventually he rose to Red Shoes or war captain of Couechitto. Red Shoes became his name. It was the highest rank a man of common birth could hope to obtain. He was in his twenties when he began his rise to power which paralleled the decline of the head chief of Couechitto, Mingo Tchito and the dismantling of Choctaw power structure. Though both Red Shoes and Mingo Tchito, were equally shrewd, Mingo Tchito lacked his young rival's boldness and willingness to gamble everything. Mingo Tchito always hedged his bets. It was a very dangerous game of survival these two played and Red Shoes emerged as the leader after a series of crisis plagued Couechitto after 1729. Red Shoes did not act defensively nor was he a pawn of the Europeans. When he went over to the English it was upon his own terms. He could be treacherous and ruthless, but to be less meant destruction in those dangerous times.Red Shoes, who hailed from the western division, opened trade with British fur traders based in South Carolina in the 1740s and ignited the Choctaw Civil War when he killed some French traders. These killings were not wanton. They were in retailiation for wrongs against the Choctaw, possibly including rape and murder.
When the South Carolinians intrigued with Choctaw chief Red Shoes to win his large tribe away from French alliance, the French countered by arranging Red Shoe's assassination.
Betrayal
In June of 1747, a pack train bearing English presents from Chareston approached the Choctaw Nation. Red Shoes took a party to escort the traders to Couechitto. He never returned. On June 23, 1747, he felt sick and made his camp away from the main party keeping only one retainer. The man who volunteered for this duty was the man the French had bribed to kill him. As he slept, that man took out a knife, murdered Red Shoes for the French price on his head, and slipped into the night.In the aftermath of his assassination, more tragedy ensued. A substantial number of towns returned to the French, plunging the Choctaw into the civil war. 800 warriors died in the ruins of their towns or in the woods where they were hunted down. Rivalries over trade with France and Britain caused the rift in Choctaw society, primarily between the western and eastern divisions, that lasted from 1747 to 1750.
Eastern-division forces allied with France prevailed in the conflict and burned several western-division towns to the ground. Hundreds of Choctaws died during the war, which revealed deep divisions in the confederacy.
Red Shoes had sought much more than personal gain. He had a vision that the Choctaws would benefit from the advantages the Europeans brought without falling under their rule. Retaining his independence, he made his own terms. He adapted, survived and prospered for a time.
Even his death transformed the Choctaw Nation. After the conflict, Choctaw leaders worked to end inter-ethnic animosities and unite their peoples more closely.
Folklore
Shell ShakerShell Shaker
Shell Shaker is a novel by writer and playwright LeAnne Howe, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The novel is notable for the way it interweaves two tales of murder involving flawed Choctaw political leaders set over 200 years apart in the mid 18th century and 1991, connected...
is a novel by writer and playwright LeAnne Howe
LeAnne Howe
LeAnne Howe is an author and scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Howe's work has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies. Her book Shell Shaker received the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book...
, The early tale, beginning in 1738 in pre-removal Choctaw Mississippi, tells the story of Red Shoes, a historical Choctaw warrior. This story is paralleled by a modern-day murder mystery also based on a true story.
Notable descendants
Atahobia - signer of the Treaty of Doak's StandTreaty of Doak's Stand
The Treaty of Doak's Stand was signed on October 18, 1820 between the United States and the Choctaw Indian tribe. Based on the terms of the accord, the Choctaw agreed to give up approximately one-half of their remaining Choctaw homeland...
in 1820, as one of the Chiefs and Headmen of the Choctaw. One of, if not the primary leader of the Yowanis who moved into 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...
following their petition of the Mexican government for permission to settle in the province in 1824
William Clyde Thompson
William Clyde Thompson
Captain William Clyde Thompson was a Texas Choctaw leader who rallied against the Dawes Commission for Choctaw enrollment. He was born in 1839 near Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nation.-Background:...
- Texas Choctaw leader who rallied against the Dawes Commission for Choctaw enrollment
James Neely McCoy - Supreme Judge of the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory
William Clyde Thompson
Captain William Clyde Thompson was a Texas Choctaw leader who rallied against the Dawes Commission for Choctaw enrollment. He was born in 1839 near Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nation.-Background:...
Charles Collin Thompson - attorney, banker, and rancher