Choctaw Tribe Research Paper

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Within the United States, there are several Native American tribes, and there are five tribes that are known as the “Five Civilized Tribes”, with the Choctaws (aka Chahta) being one of the Five Civilized Tribes. There are two main Choctaw tribes, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and the one I will be writing about, and am a tribal member of, The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Being part of the “Five Civilized Tribes” wasn’t always beneficial for the Choctaw Nation; in fact, it was injurious to our culture, including our language. In the 1800’s the Americans were determined to civilize the indigenous people by assimilating them to the way of the Americans. A part of this assimilation was making the indigenous people speak English in their …show more content…
The common ownership of land was to be changed – reservations would be broken up into ‘allotments’ for families to cultivate.”
Due to this Act and the limitations enforced on the indigenous people, it prevented them from practicing their native language, and would have an enormous influence on the future indigenous generations. In fact, it wasn’t until approximately seventy-three years later, in the 1960’s, when the government started reversing some of their previous opinions and started moving toward helping the indigenous people keep their native languages …show more content…
By the time the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act passed in 1975 the Choctaws had approximately “130,000 tribal members with only 730 members that spoke the Choctaw Language” (Lambert 85). When Choctaw Chief Gardner was running for Chief in the mid 1970’s, he “promoted the ‘preservation’ of the Choctaw language in his campaign. After he became Chief, “he obtained permission to reprint a Choctaw dictionary, this publication rekindled some interest in the Choctaw language” however, restoration of the language wouldn’t fully begin for another 20 years. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Native American Languages Act, this Act provided the ability for the indigenous people to converse in their native languages including in public and within public schools. This provided new motivation for the tribes, including the Choctaws, to develop language programs so that its tribal members could study the language, including within the public school system. However, it took until the “late 1990’s when the Assistant Chief Gregory Pyle and the tribal elders envisioned rejuvenating the Choctaw language through community centers, head start programs and Internet classes.” (Klug 87). Although these programs
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