Editing Chickasaw (section)

==History==
[[File:Indians NW of South Carolina.jpg|thumb|right|250px|A {{circa|lk=no|1724}} English copy of a [[deerskin]] [[Catawba people|Catawba]] map of the [[Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands|tribes]] between [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] (''left'') and [[Province of Virginia|Virginia]] (''right'') following the displacements of a century of [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas#Depopulation from disease|disease]] and [[Slavery among the indigenous peoples of the Americas|enslavement]] and the 1715–7 [[Yamasee War]]. The Chickasaw are labeled as "Chickisa".]]
The origin of the Chickasaw is uncertain; 20th-century scholars, such as the [[archaeologist]] Patricia Galloway, theorize that the Chickasaw and Choctaw split into distinct peoples in the 17th century from the remains of [[Plaquemine culture]] and other groups whose ancestors had lived in the lower Mississippi Valley for thousands of years.<ref name=GALLOWAY>{{cite book|last=Galloway|first=Patricia |title=Choctaw Genesis, 1500–1700|series=Indians of the Southeast|publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]]|location=Lincoln, NE|pages=49–54|isbn=9780803270701|oclc=32012964|year=1995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2HVOImebydMC&q=Plaquemine&pg=PA49|access-date=August 31, 2013}}</ref> When Europeans first encountered them, the Chickasaw were living in villages in what is now northeastern Mississippi.

The Chickasaw are believed to have migrated into [[Mississippi]] from the west, as their oral history attests.<ref name="cushman"/><ref>{{cite book |title=A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida |first=B. |last=Romans |author-link=Bernard Romans |location=New York |publisher=Printed for the author |year=1775 |page=[https://archive.org/details/concisenaturalhi00roma/page/70/mode/2up 71] |language=en |oclc=745317190}}</ref> They and the Choctaw were once one people and migrated from west of the [[Mississippi River]] into present-day Mississippi in prehistoric times; the Chickasaw and Choctaw split along the way. The [[Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere]] spanned the [[Eastern Woodlands]]. The [[Mississippian culture]]s emerged from previous [[moundbuilding societies]] by 880 CE. They built complex, dense villages supporting a stratified society, with centers throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys and their tributaries.

In the 15th century, proto-Chickasaw people left the [[Tombigbee Valley]] after the collapse of the [[Moundville Archaeological Site|Moundville]] chiefdom. Chickasaw culture believe that the foundation of Chickasaw from proto-Chickasaw peoples was determined by the Mississippi River.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Mack |first=Dustin J. |date=2018 |title=The Chickasaws' Place-World: The Mississippi River in Chickasaw History and Geography |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/699963 |journal=Native South |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.1353/nso.2018.0000 |issn=2152-4025}}</ref> The Mississippi River is referred to as ''Sakti Lhafa’ Okhina'' in ''[[Chickasaw language|Chikashanompa]]','' which means “scored bluff waterway", known today as the [[Chickasaw Bluff]]s.<ref name=":1" /> Settling upon the river provided the people with a symbolic sense of new beginngings, washing away the past of the proto-Chickasaw and entering into a new modern age of the Chickasaw. The migration marked their split from other Native American communities like the Choctaws.<ref name=":1" /> They settled into the upper [[Yazoo River|Yazoo]] and [[Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana)|Pearl River]] valleys in present-day Mississippi. Historian [[Arrell Gibson]] and anthropologist [[John R. Swanton]] believed the Chickasaw Old Fields were in [[Madison County, Alabama]].<ref name="clark">{{cite book|last1=Clark|first1=Blue|title=Indian Tribes of Oklahoma: A Guide|date=2009|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|location=Norman|isbn=978-0-8061-4060-5|page=95|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-REv0Se_aR8C&q=Chickasaw+origins&pg=PA95}}</ref>

{{blockquote|The Chicasaws {{sic}}, they being (although a small tribe) accounted the mother nation on this part of the continent, and their language, universally adopted by most, if not all the western [American Indian] nations.| sign=[[Bernard Romans]] | source=''Natural History of East and West Florida''<ref>{{cite book |title=A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida |first=B. |last=Romans |author-link=Bernard Romans |location=New York |publisher=Printed for the author |year=1775 |page=[https://archive.org/details/concisenaturalhi00roma/page/58/mode/2up 59] |language=en |oclc=745317190}}</ref>}}

The Choctaws relayed to Bernard Romans their creation myth, saying that they came "out of a hole in the ground, which they shew between their nation and the Chickasaws." Another version of the Chickasaw creation story is that they arose at ''[[Nanih Waiya]],'' a great [[earthworks (archaeology)|earthwork]] [[mound]] built about 300 CE by [[Woodland]] peoples. It is also sacred to the Choctaw, who share a similar story. The mound was built about 1400 years before the coalescence of each of these peoples as [[ethnic]] groups.
[[File:DeSoto Map Leg 2 HRoe 2008.jpg|thumb|left|250px|The second leg of the de Soto Expedition, from [[Apalachee]] to the Chicaza]]
The first European contact with the Chickasaw was in 1540 when [[Spanish people|Spanish]] explorer Hernando de Soto encountered the tribe and stayed in one of their towns, most likely near present-day [[Starkville, Mississippi]]. The Chickasaw were alert around the Spanish, placing war banners implying their intentions for when they would meet the Spanish. The Chickasaw additionally gathered intel that the Spanish recently fought a nearly-lost battle in the town of Mabila, led by leader Tascalusa, only a few months prior to the Spanish entering their territory.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Ethridge |first=Robbie Franklyn |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/607975609 |title=From Chicaza to Chickasaw: the European invasion and the transformation of the Mississippian world, 1540-1715 |date=2010 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-3435-0 |location=Chapel Hill |oclc=607975609}}</ref> In the winter of 1540, conflict finally struck between Chickasaw warriors and the Spanish Explorers. The reasonings for the battle vary from Spanish looting Chickasaw food storages, to general heated animosity between the two groups.<ref name=":2" /> After various disagreements, the Chickasaw attacked the De Soto expedition in a nighttime raid, nearly destroying the force. The Spanish moved on quickly.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hudson, Charles M.|title =Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820318882|url-access=registration| year =1997|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn =9780820318882|author-link=Charles M. Hudson (author)}}</ref>

The Chickasaw began to establish trading relationships with [[Kingdom of England|English]] colonists in the [[Province of Carolina]] after that colony was established in 1670. After acquiring firearms from colonial merchants in Carolina, Chickasaw raiders began to attack settlements belonging to a rival tribe, the [[Choctaw]], in order to acquire captives which they [[Indian slave trade in the American Southeast|sold to the colonists]]. These raids largely subsided after the Choctaw acquired firearms of their own from the French.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HT69BbA3Is8C&q=chickasaw+trade+carolina&pg=PA257|title=Indian Slavery in Colonial America|last=Gallay|first=Alan|date=2009-01-01|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0803222007|language=en}}</ref>

Allied with British colonists in the [[Southern Colonies]], the Chickasaw were often at war with the [[Kingdom of France|French]] and the Choctaw in the 18th century, such as in the [[Battle of Ackia]] on May 26, 1736. Skirmishes continued until France ceded its claims to the region east of the Mississippi River after being defeated by the British in the [[Seven Years' War]] (called the [[French and Indian War]] in North America).

Following the [[American Revolutionary War]], in 1793–94, the Chickasaw under Chief [[Piomingo]] fought as allies of the new United States under General [[Anthony Wayne]] against the Indians of the old [[Northwest Territory]]. The [[Shawnee]] and other allied [[Northeastern Woodlands tribes|Northwest Indians]] were defeated in the [[Battle of Fallen Timbers]] on August 20, 1794.

A 19th-century historian, [[Horatio Cushman]], wrote, "Neither the Choctaws nor Chicksaws ever engaged in war against the American people, but always stood as their faithful allies." Cushman believed the Chickasaw, along with the Choctaw, may have had origins in present-day [[Mexico]] and migrated north.<ref name=cushman>
{{cite book | last = Cushman | first = Horatio | title = History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians | year = 1899 | publisher = University of Oklahoma Press | pages = 18–19 | chapter = Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez | isbn = 0-8061-3127-6}}</ref> Frenchman [[Le Clerc Milfort]], when writing about the Creek Indians, echoed the same view.<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Milfort |author-first=Louis |title=Mémoire, ou, Coup-d'oeil rapide sur mes différens voyages et mon séjour dans la nation Crëck |publisher=De l'Imprimerie de Giguet et Michaud |location=Paris|date=1802|page= |language=fr |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xidXVbWh5H8C }}</ref> That theory, however, does not have consensus; archeological research, as noted above, has revealed the peoples had long histories in the Mississippi area and independently developed complex cultures.