
Pushmataha, Choctaw Indian Chief

by British Library
Title
Pushmataha, Choctaw Indian Chief
Artist
British Library
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Image taken from page 487 of "Memoirs, official and personal; with sketches of travels among the Northern and Southern Indians; embracing a war excursion, and descriptions of scenes along the Western borders" by Thomas Loraine McKenney, 1846. Pushmataha (1760s - December 24, 1824), the "Indian General", was one of the three regional chiefs of the major divisions of the Choctaw in the 19th century. He was highly regarded among Native Americans, Europeans, and white Americans for his skill and cunning in both war and diplomacy. Rejecting the offers of alliance and reconquest proffered by Tecumseh, he led the Choctaw to fight on the side of the United States in the War of 1812, and later negotiated several treaties with the U.S. In 1824, he traveled to Washington and petitioned the Federal government against further cessions of Choctaw land. There he acquired a viral respiratory infection, then called the croup. He became seriously ill and was visited by Andrew Jackson. His last recorded words were these "I am about to die, but you will return to our country. As you go along the paths, you will see the flowers, and hear the birds sing; but Pushmataha will see and hear them no more. When you reach home they will ask you, 'Where is Pushmataha?' And you will say to them, 'He is no more.' They will hear your words as they do the fall of the great oak in the stillness of the midnight woods." He was buried with full military honors as a Brigadier General of the U.S. Army, in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington. He is one of two Native American chiefs interred there.
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June 14th, 2016
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