Will "poisoned" Indians conquer the United States in the twenty-first century? Is there anything that can be done to stop them? Can the United States's oldest and most loyal Indian military ally, the Choctaws, stop them? Or do Choctaws pose the most difficult problem of all? In this provocative and incendiary book, D. L. Birchfield bluntly points out what few are willing to say: America's population superiority is now meaningless; its population density is a crippling liability; and the United States has a dangerous "Indian problem." If you don't know about the American betrayal of the Choctaws, or whether Choctaws are still loyal to the United States, or why the third largest Indian nation in North America is virtually unknown to Americans, sit back and hold on as Birchfield pulls back the curtain to reveal a startling future, with an irreverence and disdain for convention that is anything but subtle.

Premise: "A secret underground civilization of Choctaws, deep beneath the Ouachita Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, has evolved into a high-tech culture, supported by the labor of slaves kidnapped from the surface."

Records the history of the Choctaw Indians through their political, social, and economic customs.

Originally residing in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the Choctaws were one of the first Native American tribes forcibly removed to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma).

This work examines the world's indigenous peoples, their cultures, the countries in which they reside, and the issues that impact these groups.

Contributions by Linda Pierce Allen, Carl L. Bankston III, Barbara Carpenter, Milburn J. Crowe, Vy Thuc Dao, Bridget Anne Hayden, Joyce Marie Jackson, Emily Erwin Jones, Tom Mould, Frieda Quon, Celeste Ray, Stuart Rockoff, Devparna Roy, Aimée L. Schmidt, James Thomas, Shana Walton, Lola Williamson, and Amy L. Young Throughout its history, Mississippi has seen a small, steady stream of immigrants, and those identities—sometimes submerged, sometimes hidden—have helped shape the state in important ways. Amid renewed interest in identity, the Mississippi Humanities Council has commissioned a companion volume to its earlier book that studied ethnicity in the state from the period 1500-1900. This new book, Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi: The Twentieth Century, offers stories of immigrants overcoming obstacles, immigrants newly arrived, and long-settled groups witnessing a revitalized claim to membership. The book examines twentieth-century immigration trends, explores the reemergence of ethnic identity, and undertakes case studies of current ethnic groups. Some of the groups featured in the volume include Chinese, Latino, Lebanese, Jewish, Filipino, South Asian, and Vietnamese communities. The book also examines Biloxi as a city that has long attracted a diverse population and takes a look at the growth in identity affiliation among people of European descent. The book is funded in part by a “We the People” grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"Richard White's study of the collapse into 'dependency' of three Native American subsistence economies represents the best kind of interdisciplinary effort. Here ideas and approaches from several fields--mainly anthropology, history, and ecology--are fruitfully combined in one inquiring mind closely focused on a related set of large, salient problems. . . . A very sophisticated study, a 'best read' in Indian history."--American Historical Review "The book is original, enlightening, and rewarding. It points the way to a holistic manner in which tribal histories and studies of Indian-white relations should be written in the future. It can be recommended to anyone interested in Indian affairs, particularly in the question of the present-day dependency plight of the tribes."--Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Western Historical Quarterly "The Roots of Dependency is a model study. With a provocative thesis tightly argued, it is extensively researched and well written. The nonreductionist, interdisciplinary approach provides insight heretofore beyond the range of traditional methodologies. . . . To the historiography of the American Indian this book is an important addition."--W. David Baird, American Indian Quarterly Richard White is a professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Asso-ciation, the James A. Rawley Prize presented by the Organization of Ameri-can Historians and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His books include The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A History of the American West and The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River

The early decades of the nineteenth century brought intense political turmoil and cultural change for the Choctaw Indians. While they still lived on their native lands in central Mississippi, they would soon be forcibly removed to Oklahoma. This book makes available for the first time a key legal document from this turbulent period in Choctaw history. Originally written in Choctaw by Peter Perkins Pitchlynn (1806–1881), and painstakingly translated by linguist Marcia Haag and native speaker Henry Willis, the document is reproduced here in both Choctaw and English, with original text and translation appearing side by side. A leader and future chief of the Choctaw Nation, Pitchlynn created this record in the wake of a series of Choctaw Council meetings that occurred during the years 1826–1828. The council consisted of chiefs and other tribal statesmen from the nation’s three districts. Their goal for these meetings was to uphold traditions of Choctaw leadership and provide guidance on conduct for Choctaw people “according to a common mind.” Featuring an in-depth introduction by historian Clara Sue Kidwell, this book is an important foundational source for understanding the evolution of the Choctaw Nation and its eventual adoption of a formal constitution.

Under what conditions can democratic governments be formed and become stable? The author addresses this question in a unique way that brings sociological and political theory to bear on the study of traditional societies, long the preserve of historians and anthropologists. By examining in detail the history of four American Indian societies—the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, and the Creek—the author documents a general theory of politics and constitutional government. The four societies present an opportunity to study the process of democratic institution building in a controlled, comparative historical context. The societies were subject to similar geopolitical relations with the United States; they were incorporated into the same sequence of world economic system relations (initially fur trade and then the cotton market); they experienced the emergence of class structures; and they all produced some form of constitutional democracy. The Cherokee, however, adopted a stable constitutional government earlier and with less coercion than the other three nations. Why was this so? With the aid of comparative analysis, the author finds the answer in the Cherokee differentiation of politics from the nationally and religiously ordered clan system. This set of institutional relations allowed the Cherokee to maintain a strong sense of social solidarity while tolerating conflict, increased political differentiation, and formation of a political nationality. The other three societies were either less differentiated or less socially unified. They formed their constitutional governments thirty to forty years later than the Cherokee and with more internal political coercion—and, in the Creek case, with less political stability. The formation and stabilization of democratic state governments is a major issue in such contemporary phenomena as political change in Third World nations and the transformation of the governments of Eastern Europe. The four case studies presented in this hook form the basis of a new and powerful theoretical argument for understanding historical patterns of democratic change, political stability, and the relations of political power.