SIGNIFICANT VALUE FOR A HISTORY BUFF

books:

	• History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians H. B. Cushman, Angie Debo University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 - 503 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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SIGNIFICANT VALUE FOR A HISTORY BUFF

This book is not for everyone, but if you have a real interest in the history & culture of the Native Americans of the Southern U.S.(especially Mississippi)you ought to take a look. Cushman's first hand knowledge particularly of the Choctaws is extensive. Reading this will give you a better understanding and respect of a culture that deserved more inclusion in American History. Many of the legends and historical events are fascinating and are little known. It also helps to clear up some fallacies about all three tribes. Cushman does pontificate and ramble through much of this book, even though it is abridged specifically to eliminate much of this.There are some inaccuracies as well but all in all it is fascinating and may be the most accurate and detailed history of these people.

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Good history

This is an excellent book for history students, particularly Native American history students. This may well be the only book in existence which attempts to document the oral history of the Chickasaw and Choctaw people. The forward of the book explains how it had been recovered from an old publication and edited for content. The story is told from the personal experiences of the son of Christian missionaries who personally grew up in the company of the Chickasaw and Choctaw people. In this book he recalls personal experiences he had, along with sharing stories he was told. Because this book was originally written in the late 1800s, you will encounter an "old English" style of writing and discourse which may be awkward to those unfamiliar with this out of date speech (anyone who has studied Shakespeare or other old English literature, for example, should have no difficulty). This book does not flow like a progressive story, but is rather a collection of facts and individual stories. The author's description of the "Pole Games" for example is quite exciting, and there are other accounts of great bravery and perseverance that was required for survival. I recommend this book to any serious student willing to make the effort to plug through the book. You will be rewarded with a history that few of your piers will posses.

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H. B. Cushman, the son of missionaries working at Mayhew, a Choctaw Indian station in Mississippi, observed the Indians' heartbreaking removal from Mississippi between 1831 and 1833. Later in life he continued to be associated with them, when he lived in Texas just across the Red River from the Choctaws and Chickasaws. In 1884, in an attempt to criticize white exploitation of the Indians, Cushman embarked on writing his History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians from the Indians' point of view. He spent six years renewing contacts, visiting cemeteries, observing Indian councils, and studying Indian records in the original languages. Published in 1899, his history is extremely valuable for his firsthand observations on the removal and later history of the Choctaws and Chickasaws as well as for its material on the Natchez Indians, about whom little is in print. Because the original edition was repetitious and contained homilies and irrelevant literary allusions, Angie Debo abridged, edited, and indexed the work. Her 1961 edition, with a new introduction by Clara Sue Kidwell, is here published in paperback for the first time.

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