Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma

The Chickasaw originally resided along the Tennessee River west of Huntsville, Alabama. Sometime prior to the first European contact, the Chickasaw moved east and settled east of the Mississippi River. All historical records indicate the Chickasaw lived in northeast Mississippi from the first European contact until they were forced to remove to Oklahoma, where most now live.

When Europeans first encountered them in 1540, the Chickasaws were living in villages in what is now Mississippi, with a smaller number in the area of Savannah Town, South Carolina. The Chickasaws may have been immigrants to the area and perhaps were not descendants of Indians of the pre-historic Mississippian culture. Their oral history supports this, indicating they moved along with the Choctaws from west of the Mississippi in pre-history.

The Chickasaws were one of the Five Civilized Tribes forcibly removed to the Indian Territory during the era of Indian Removal. They are related to the Choctaws, who speak a language very similar to the Chickasaw language, both forming the Western Group of the Muskogean languages. "Chickasaw" is the English spelling of Chikasha. The Chickasaw are divided in two groups: the "Impsaktea" and the "Intcutwalipa." 

The majority of the Chickasaw tribe was deported to Indian Territory (now headquartered in Ada, Oklahoma) in the late 1830s. Chickasaw emigration lasted from 1837 until well into the 1850s. The extended relocation made it impossible for traditional or governmental leadership to accomplish a quick and orderly consolidation of Chickasaw society. As part of the original agreement set forth in the 1837 Doaksville removal treaty, the Chickasaw Nation became part of the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory. The first attempt of Chickasaws to secede from the Choctaw Nation and form their own government occurred in October 1846 with an effort to develop a constitution. Other efforts followed in 1848, 1849, and 1851. In 1855, Chickasaw and Choctaw commissioners met in Washington to discuss dissolving the 1837 agreement. In August 1856, Chickasaws convened at Good Spring on Pennington Creek to ratify the constitution of the newly emergent Chickasaw Nation government.

Five years later, the new Chickasaw government sided with the Confederacy and declared itself independent of the United States. On July 14, 1865, the Chickasaw Nation formally capitulated and was the last confederate community to surrender to the U.S. They were punished with the Reconstruction Treaty of 1866. Through the actions of the federal Dawes Commission, all land held in common by the Chickasaw Nation was divided into allotments and distributed among tribal members. The federal government took control of tribal governmental functions. Soon all tribal laws and the constitution were rendered null and void. By 1906 the Chickasaw government was no longer in existence. In 1983, the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma adopted a new constitution.

Remnants of the South Carolina Chickasaws, known as the Chaloklowa Chickasaws reorganized tribal government, and gained official recognition from the state of South Carolina in the summer of 2005, having their tribal headquarters at Indiantown, South Carolina.

The Chickasaw Nation is the thirteenth largest federally-recognized tribe in the United States.