On this day in Alabama history: Chickasaw Nation signed Treaty of Pontotoc
A sketch by Bernard Romans of a Chickasaw warrior. In 1775, Romans published A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, which detailed life in the Southeast during the Colonial Era. Romans' work provides a detailed description of Native American life in the region prior to widespread white settlement. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
October 20, 1832
The Chickasaw Nation signed the Treaty of Pontotoc following the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In the agreement, the Chickasaw ceded all their lands, including a part of what is now northwest Alabama, to the federal government in exchange for land in present-day Oklahoma. While white settlers began occupying the land later that same year after its survey and sale, Chickasaw removal took years because suitable land in the West could not be found. Most Chickasaws did not arrive in Oklahoma until 1838, after the Choctaw Nation agreed to sell the western part of their new land to the Chickasaws.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.
This section from an 1824 map of Alabama shows the extent of Chickasaw territory in the state prior their removal in the 1830s. The majority of Chickasaw lands lay in what are now northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, but the tribe also occupied portions of present-day Colbert (not created until 1867), Franklin, and Marion counties. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of the University of Alabama Cartographic Research Laboratory)
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