Fort Tombecbe and Early Choctaw Treaties

Near the town of Epes, Alabama, is a small winding stream known as Factory Creek, but to Choctaw people, it was known as Bok Itombi Ikbi or Box Maker Creek. Overlooking Bok Itombi Ikbi is a large, white-colored bluff where the French built a small garrison and trade post known as Fort Tombecbe. Throughout the 1700s, Choctaw leaders commonly interacted with foreigners to ensure a supply of trade items into their communities. Chiefs would meet and negotiate treaties with Europeans to establish trade and alliances for the Choctaw Nation. This month, Iti Fabvssa would like to take a deeper look at Choctaw diplomatic customs and the various treaties which were made between Choctaws and the French, English, Spanish, and early Americans.

Choctaw Diplomatic Customs

Long before Choctaw people had contact with Europeans, Choctaw leaders forged relationships and trade with neighboring and distant people. During the 1700s, the French and Spanish began building settlements along the gulf coast and relied on Choctaw people to teach and supply them. Choctaw people taught Europeans how to interact with our homeland; we shared with them how to plant our crops and how to live in our homeland. Choctaw leaders exchanged food, trade goods, raw materials, and information. In return, Choctaw leaders were able to provide their communities with European trade goods, weapons, and information. Relationships between our peoples were done through treaties that dictated terms on military alliances, boundaries, and trade. Choctaw leaders had a formal approach to negotiations that were deeply rooted in respect. Choctaw people of the past paid special attention to those that visited their homes and communities. Visitors would be taken care of just as a family member would through food and gifts. Diplomatic negotiations operated the same way but on a larger scale. When Choctaw leaders traveled to negotiations with Europeans, they expected to have their needs provided for. The host would be given the honor of showing their influence by giving food and gifts to all who attended. Choctaw leaders would bring these gifts home and give them out to their community. (For more information on diplomacy, please look at our Jan. 2011 issue of Iti Fabvssa on Choctaw smoking pipes and tobacco).

Choctaw society was tied very deeply to our kinship or our family relationships. Our traditional society operated on established rules, acceptable behaviors, and expectations that were to be followed by Choctaw people. Part of our traditional diplomacy was to adopt people into our families in a ceremony called the Eagle Tail Dance (Figure 1). This did not just honor them, but it also gave a formal structure to treaty negotiations (O’Brien 2005:57). Because kinship is passed down through the mother, Choctaw women played a vital role in peace negotiations and the eagle tail dance.

In 1729, Choctaw leaders traveled to Mobile to negotiate stronger trade relations with the French. Choctaw Chiefs signed a treaty with the French to build four trading posts in the Choctaw Nation (White 1989:53-55). Three trading posts were built within the interior of the Choctaw Nation. The last trade post was built in 1736 when the French established a stockaded outpost called Fort Tombecbe (Galloway 1982:301). The French named Fort Tombecbe, based on the name that Choctaws had for the nearby creek, Bok Itombi Ikbi. Soon after the construction of the fort, the Choctaw village of Itombi Ikbi moved upriver and onto the bluff with a musket shot from the fort (Hamilton 1910:196). The French applied the name Bok Itombi Ikbi to the major river that ran by the fort, the Tombigbee River (Byington 1915:216).

The Tombigbee River was a major trade route and provided Choctaw people with plentiful access to hunting, fishing, and gathering. Early on, Choctaw people lived along the Tombigbee River and called it the Hatcha Hattak, or the River People. It is possible that the name Hatcha Hattak was the origin of the name we call ourselves today, the Chahta (Halbert 1915). Conflict and disease from English-allied groups to the east caused groups of Choctaw people to move from this area known today as western Alabama into east central Mississippi.

Treaty of Mobile, 1765 (England)

In 1763, France gave up control of its holdings around Choctaw country, including Fort Tombecbe and the city of Mobile, to England. After the English arrived in Mobile, they sent a garrison of troops to occupy and repair Fort Tombecbe. The English renamed it Fort York (Hamilton 1910:222). Recognizing their need to formalize a relationship with the Choctaw Nation, the English invited the Choctaws and Chickasaws to Mobile for treaty negotiations. In 1765, attending Choctaw leaders and women performed the Eagle Tail Dance with the English commissioners during the treaty negotiations (O’Brien 2005:61). Choctaw leaders asked the English to open a trading post at Fort York, requested better trade prices, and asked for annual gifts. The English agreed to these terms but asked for access to land in return. Choctaw leaders agreed to share Choctaw hunting lands west of Mobile. However, the Treaty dictated that the Choctaw would cede ownership of that land to the English (Galloway 1994:524). This would be the first time that Choctaws would cede land within our homelands. In 1768 the English garrison left Fort York but kept a trading post active until the Spanish took control of the region.

If you were to look at a modern map, the land taken by the British would stretch east to west from Mobile, Alabama, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Its northern border would be the Mississippi/Louisiana state line, and its southern border begins in Mobile, traveling west along the gulf coast, going through Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, and along the Amite River until it reached the Mississippi River. For more details, please visit the story map.

Treaty of Mobile, 1784 (Spain)

In 1783, England ceded its land holdings in the region to Spain; this included the strip of ceded Choctaw land from Mobile to Baton Rouge. One year later, Choctaw leaders received word that the Spanish wished to meet with them in Mobile to discuss a military alliance between the two Nations. The Choctaws, being the largest of the Nations in the region, brought 185 chiefs and captains that represented 59 villages. Choctaw leaders and the women attending performed the Eagle Tail Dance with the Spanish commissioners (O’Brien 2005: 61). Choctaw leaders negotiated for the Spanish to provide them with a sufficient supply of trade goods, weapons, and tools at fair prices; in return, the Choctaws would provide Spain with military support (Holmes 1969: 144). The Spanish believed they now held the monopoly on Choctaw trade. However, a year later, in 1785, Choctaw leaders received word that a new Nation wished to trade with the Choctaw, the United States.

Treaty of Hopewell, 1786 (United States)

In 1785 Choctaw Chiefs were invited to travel to Hopewell, South Carolina, to attend diplomatic talks with the United States. When the sun was at the highest point of the day, the Choctaw participants began the eagle tail dance. The Choctaw dancers painted their bodies in white clay and carried with them white poles with white deer hides. After a period of singing and dancing, they set up the largest of the white poles during the ceremony and gave gifts, including a calumet pipe, to the American commissioners. They then laid down coals brought from their village of West Yazoo and laid them in the American fire. Coals from the American fire were then brought back to West Yazoo to be mixed in the community’s fire (O’Brien 2005: 57-58). The eagle tail dance and the mixing of the coals was the highest honor the Choctaw could give. Talks resulted in defining the borders of the Choctaw Nation, trading with the Americans, and plans for three trading posts to be built within the Choctaw Nation.

Treaty of Natchez, 1792 (Spain) and Treaty of Boukfouca, 1793 (Spain)

In 1791 the Spanish traveled up the Mississippi River to an area known as Walnut Hills and built Fort Nogales. Choctaw leaders demanded that the fort be removed since the Spanish were trespassing on Choctaw lands. The Spanish invited the Choctaw leaders for discussions about the fort in the town of Natchez. In 1792, Choctaw chiefs met and agreed to allow the fort to remain within their hunting lands if the Spanish agreed to pay annual gifts to the Choctaw Nation (Holmes 1969: 151). Later that year, the Spanish asked the Choctaws for permission to occupy the remains of Fort Tombecbe. The old wooden stockade was torn down and a new earthwork fort was built in its place. The Spanish named it Fort Confederation in honor of the relationship between the Choctaw and Spanish (Holmes 1969:152).

Due to the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain would transfer its land holdings in the region over to the United States. By 1797, the Spanish would evacuate their garrison, and the village of Itombi Ikbi would move. The white bluff that housed Fort Tombecbe, Fort York, and Fort Confederation would be uninhabited until 1815, when the United States built the Choctaw Trading House, or factory, along Bok Itombi Ikbi. Soon, the creek was renamed Factory Creek by the Americans, which retains its name today (Hamilton 1910: 376).

Works Cited

Byington, Cyrus – 1918 – A dictionary of the Choctaw language. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.
Galloway, Patricia – 1982 – Choctaw Factionalism and Civil War, 1746-1750. Journal of Mississippi History 44(4):289-327.
Hamilton, Peter Joseph – 1910 – Colonial Mobile An Historical Study Largely from Original Sources, of the Alabama-Tombigbee Basin and the Old South West, from the Discovery of the Spiritu Santo in 1519 Until the Demolition of Fort Charlotte in 1821. Hougthon Mifflin Company, Boston and New York.
Halbert, Henry S. – ca. 1915 Unpublished manuscript on Choctaw history and culture. On file at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery 5(25):6
Holmes, Jack D. L. – 1969 – Spanish Treaties with West Florida Indian 1784-1802. Florida Historical Quarterly 48(2):140-154.
O’Brien, Greg – 2002 – Choctaws in a revolutionary age, 1750-1830. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
White, Richard – 1981 – Red Shoes: Warrior and Diplomat. Struggle and Survival in Colonial America. Edited by David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash, pp. 49-68. University of California Press. Berkley, Los Angeles, London.