99) [Note: This is a single part of what will be, by my classification, about 240 compact tribal histories (contact to 1900).
The normal process at this point is to circulate an almost finished product among a peer group for comment and criticism.
At the end of this History you will find links to those Nations referred to in the History of the Chickasaw.
Chickasaw Location At some time around 1300, the Chickasaw crossed the Mississippi River from an earlier location to the west (presumed to have been the Red River Valley).
According to tradition, their first permanent settlement east of the river, was Chickasaw Old Fields on the Tennessee River just west of Huntsville, Alabama.
Although they maintained a presence in northwest Alabama in later years, by 1700 Chickasaw Old Fields had moved southwest to the headwaters of the Tombigbee River in northeast Mississippi, their homeland during the historic period.
The Chickasaw also controlled western Tennessee and Kentucky west of the divide between the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers including the Chickasaw Bluffs which overlook the Mississippi River at Memphis.
One group moved east during 1723 at the invitation of South Carolina and settled on the Savannah River near Augusta, Georgia.
After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, the Chickasaw ceded their land east of the Mississippi in 1832 and agreed to remove to the Indian Territory.
The eastern band spent a few years among the Creeks in eastern Alabama before rejoining the main body in northern Mississippi
The failure to find suitable land delayed their move until 1837, after which the Chickasaw settled in southeast Oklahoma on land leased from the Choctaw. Read More→