Ishtaboli Between the Two Removals

This month, Iti Fabvssa is featuring a guest article written by Jason Lewis, an independent researcher and enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. During the pandemic, he reviewed old newspaper articles and researched how Choctaws played stickball games throughout the Southeastern U.S. and its popularity in the region. He recently gave a presentation at the Choctaw Cultural Center on this topic.

Nineteenth-century scholarship often claims that the Choctaw people who remained in our homelands after the removals hid in swamps with few resources and little agency. Yet, an in-depth survey of newspaper articles from that same time period tells a different story—one where Choctaw stickball was a pre-eminent sport with teams, tournaments, and tours that were featured for over half a century in southern U.S. newspapers. The following is an account of a touring Choctaw stickball team that was reported on in three southern states during the summer of 1897.

In August 1897, Chief Phillip’s Band of Choctaw stickball players traveled by train to play a series of “Indian Ball” exhibitions at three major cities along the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. That year, Choctaw stickball games made newspaper headlines throughout the southeastern United States. In fact, over thirty newspaper articles about Choctaw stickball appeared in major syndications and local papers alike. The tour featured Chief Phillip’s Band and started to ‘trend’ just as the team embarked; they even gained notoriety after an unfortunate event on the last day. The coverage provides a fascinating glimpse of the sport as a truly popular pastime – not just for our Choctaw ancestors but for the entire southeastern United States.

Chief Phillip was Williamson Phillip, an elder who lived in Cushtusa, Mississippi (an ancestral Choctaw settlement known originally as Kʋshtasha, or Kʋshtih asha, which translates to Fleas Are There). Riley Phillip, possibly Williamson’s son or nephew, was named as one of the players. Riley was a credentialed school teacher for one of the state-sponsored Choctaw schools in Mississippi, most likely at Cushtusa. The touring band was reported to be a group of 32 players from Neshoba and Newton counties, a few Choctaw women who cooked for the band and two non-Choctaws, Messrs. Jones and Philyen of Neshoba County, Mississippi.

On August 18, The Times-Democrat of New Orleans reported that the ball players arrived in Meridian, Mississippi, on August 17 and played an exhibition before embarking on their Mobile and Ohio Railroad tour. Their first stop was in Mobile, Alabama.

On the morning of August 18, the Choctaw ball players were supposed to ride a different train to Biloxi, Mississippi, for exhibition games on August 18 and 19. But, according to the local Biloxi Herald, “[t]he noble red men who were billed to appear in B’loxi this week and give an exhibition of their skill in Indian ball playing, failed to show up” (August 21, 1897). The team went on to play games on Friday and Saturday, August 20 and 21, at Monroe Park, a once-popular bayfront amusement park in Mobile, Alabama.

On August 25, The Times-Democrat reported Chief Phillip’s Band embarked on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad from Mobile towards New Orleans with a stop in Biloxi. The Biloxi Herald ungraciously wrote, “a band of worthless representatives of the ‘noble red man,” took up station for two days of ball-play at Gulf View Park on August 25 and 26 (August 28, 1897).

On August 26, Chief Phillip’s Band arrived in New Orleans. Upon disembarking, the team was sent by local rail car to a popular sporting and entertainment venue called Athletic Park. They were to be featured for the final weekend of the summer season. Both major New Orleans newspapers, The Times-Democrat and the Times-Picayune advertised it. The Times-Democrat described the play: “King Philups’ band…gave an exhibition of Indian ball that opened the eyes of some of the racquette players of New Orleans…The two games are almost identical, with the exception that the Indians have fewer rules…all of them played such quick, snappy, aggressive ball as to win the admiration of all who saw them…the local players…would have to get axes to be in the same class with the copperskins.”

In the 1840s, Black and white New Orleans residents appropriated a version of Indian Ball-Play and called it “racquette.” Before the US Civil War, the city had common games of racquette between Choctaw and Creole (Black) teams. In 1868, a band of ball players from the Indian Territory were commissioned to compete with local teams at the New Orleans Fairgrounds Race Course. They arrived by steamboat in April of that year. Interestingly, this Indian Territory team was composed of Choctaw, Creek, Osage and Comanche stickball players.

At the end of Chief Phillip’s gulf coast tour, the band was reported to have $42 on hand and camped out in the Louisville and Nashville train depot, ready to return home via train on August 30. But that night, they were robbed in their sleep and left stranded. This unfortunate circumstance also became Gulf South news, best summarized in The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. It stated that after playing in New Orleans, “someone pocketed the gate receipts, and the poor Red Man was left high and dry, penniless in a strange city.” As a result of this, “the mayor had a collection taken up to get the Indians to their homes, the Queen and Crescent route generously agreeing to haul them for one-fifth fare.”

By September 1897, twelve articles, not including the advertisements for the Athletic Park ‘Whoop-La’ exhibition, outlined the events of Chief Phillip’s Band’s 15-day tour.

These articles covering Chief Phillip’s tour are just a few of the 100+ articles published about Choctaw stickball from 1845-1898. After the U.S. Civil War, Choctaw stickball teams from Indian Territory and Mississippi were recruited to play for county and state fairs, to go on interstate tours, or to provide exhibitions in towns large and small, which in turn stoked local economies. Whether this was out of local pride or to help wash away the sorrows of a region facing tremendous turmoil, Choctaw ball plays were a genuine salve; and they need to be recognized as such. No doubt, they also provided an enticing source of revenue and agency for the ball players.

Although this helped encourage stickball playing, it came at a cost. The interest was so high in Mississippi rural communities that local non-Choctaws encouraged and increased alcohol consumption and gambling at games. By 1890, state legislation was proposed to ban ball plays for “Indians or white men.” In January 1898, gambling at Indian ball plays was banned. Perhaps the fever of 1897 was the last hurrah before the state of Mississippi pulled the reins on this ancient sport.

After a singular unfinished tournament between the Bogue Chitto, Turkey Creek, and Red Water teams on February 4, 1898, newspaper reporters soon lost interest. Though it is important to know the game itself was never completely banned, and ball-play among Choctaw communities in Mississippi continued as it does now and has for hundreds – if not thousands of years.

1898 was also the beginning of the era known as the Second Great Removal of the Choctaw. In the early 1900s, thousands of Mississippi Choctaws were promised land allotments by the Dawes Commission. Families were removed to Indian Territory either by the U.S. government or by private land speculators. Choctaws who ended up leaving with the latter were often tricked out of their allotments and many walked back to Mississippi.

Chief Williamson Phillip and his family were counted among those removed by government-sponsored train from Meridian, Mississippi, to Atoka, Indian Territory, from August 12-13, 1903 – six years after their grand ball-play tour. Today, many of his descendants are members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.