by Maggie Mbroh

Created on: March 24, 2009

Memoirs My Forefathers Left Me

I quite remember so many years back when I was ten years old. My great- grandfather, a Chickasaw used to sit me beside a well-lit fire of coal and sometimes wood at night , telling me about 'our people' and how Mississippi became what it is today.

We were the earliest inhabitants to live in Mississippi dating back to thousands of years ago. Our people hunted the abundant wildlife like the mammoths, mastodons, deer and turkeys with stone tools and spears. They used the skin of some animals for clothing, and gathered fruits and nuts. During those times, the Indian tribes included the Tunica, Yazoo, Koroa and Choula, but the three dominant tribes were the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez.

After sometime, our people developed highly organized societies in places now known as Mississippi and the Ohio River Valleys. We built burial mounds shaped like birds and other wildlife for the burial of our kings. We built villages surrounded by wooden defenses, and became larger and tied together politically. We started raising crops like maize(corn), beans, and squash, and domesticated animals like goats, hens and dogs. We had clans and practiced exogamy and polygyny. Our chiefs possessed all the authority; no one ever dared to pass between the chief and the canetorch which burned in his cabin, and was carried before him when he went out.

After the Europeans came, the population of our people decreased drastically due to some of their diseases like yellow fever and measles. Animals like the horse and hog were introduced to us. Wars also contributed a quarter, not forgetting the 'The Great Trail of Tears'. Even before the coming of the Europeans, the different tribes fought one another. The Europeans were also often at war with one another, but most of the wars were fought right here on our soil. We raided the Choctaw lands, seized their people and took them to Charleston, South Carolina to be sold as slaves. After sometime, the Choctaw also attacked us at Ackia, near Tupelo in Northeastern Mississippi, but we defeated them because we were sided by the English. All these while, we did not know what we were doing to ourselves until the harm was done - our population decreased further.

To worsen it all, were the continued westward pressure by white settlers. Lands belonging to us and the Choctaw were seized by these Europeans. The French were the second people who came and they controlled the interior of the United States and the Mississippi River. The British followed, and they came to colonize us. The Spanish were the first to come but they wanted riches and to change our religion to Christianity. Later, the Americans came but their harm on us was to a lower extent.

Well, my little ones, my great- grandfather concluded, "I am telling you this because I am over 85 years old now, and I will leave soon, but the history must be with you no matter what."

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