Editing Five Civilized Tribes (section)

===Choctaw===
{{Main|Choctaw|Choctaw Nation}}

The [[Choctaw]] are Native American people originally from the [[Southeastern United States]], including present-day Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. There were about 20,000 members of this tribe when they were forced to move to Indian Territory. Many of them did not survive.<ref>{{cite web |title=Choctaw History |url=http://www.fivecivilizedtribes.org/Choctaw-History.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303142231/http://www.fivecivilizedtribes.org/Choctaw-History.html |archive-date=3 March 2021 |publisher=Fivecivilizedtribes.org |access-date=29 October 2021}}</ref> They are of the [[Muskogean languages|Muskogean linguistic]] group. The word ''Choctaw'' (also rendered as ''Chahta'', ''Chato'', ''Tchakta'', and ''Chocktaw'') is possibly a corruption of the Spanish ''chato'', meaning flattened, in allusion to the tribe's custom of flattening the heads of infants.<ref name="Hodge1907">{{cite book|author=Frederick Webb Hodge|title=... Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: A-M|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kugNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA288|year=1907|publisher=United States Government Printing Office|page=288}}</ref><ref name="Cushman1899">{{cite book|author=Horatio Bardwell Cushman|title=History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924073559761|year=1899|publisher=Headlight printing house|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924073559761/page/n575 564]}}</ref> Noted anthropologist [[John Swanton]], however, suggests that the name belonged to a Choctaw leader.<ref name=john_swanton_figure>{{cite book | last = Swanton | first = John | title = Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians | year = 1931 | publisher=The University of Alabama Press | isbn = 0-8173-1109-2 | page = 29}}</ref> They were descended from people of the [[Mississippian culture]] which was located throughout the Mississippi River Valley. Historians such as [[Walter Lee Williams]] have documented some early [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish explorers]] encountering chiefs of the Mississippian culture, ancestors of some of the Five Tribes.<ref name=walter_williams_antecedents>{{cite book | last = Williams | first = Walter | author-link = Walter Lee Williams | title = Southeastern Indians: Since the Removal Era | year = 1979 | publisher=University of Georgia Press | location = Athens, Georgia | chapter = Southeastern Indians before Removal, Prehistory, Contact, Decline | pages = 7–10}}</ref>

Although smaller Choctaw groups are located in the southern region, the [[Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma]] and the [[Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians]] are the two primary federally recognized tribes. This people historically cultivated beans, maize, and squash, like other settled Indians. They also hunted and fished for some of their diet. Since the early nineteenth century, the tribe has recovered and increased in number. The federally recognized tribes have about 231,000 members in total, making the Choctaw the third-largest Native American population in the United States. The capital of the [[Choctaw Nation]] is in [[Tuskahoma, Oklahoma]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.choctawnation.com/history/ |title=History |publisher=Choctaw Nation |access-date=2015-10-18}}</ref>