Haiyowvni Choctaw living among the Caddo in East Texas
Courtesy of the Gilcrease Museum

Haiyowvni Choctaw living among the Caddo in East Texas

The History of Choctaws in Texas

Iti FabvssaPublished November 1, 2025

This month, Iti Fabvssa would like to focus on the history of Choctaw presence in East Texas from 1790 to 1840. There is little information written on Choctaw people in East Texas now. What little information does exist is from Spanish, Mexican, Texan, and American reports. Many Choctaw people who moved to East Texas were looking for a peaceful way of life where they could continue to live freely, without the pressures of colonization. However, the first Choctaw encounters in the region were not marked by peace, but by violence.

During the French Period, 1699–1763, the Choctaw Nation had established a strong Alliance with France. During this time, Choctaw hunters began participating in the French fur trade, where they would bring hides and materials to French traders in exchange for European manufactured goods. As the French were forced to leave the area, Choctaws continued this trade with Great Britain and Spain.

By the 1770s, deer and other wild game were becoming scarce in our homelands because of overhunting and drought (Caldwell 2020: 6). This caused Choctaw hunters to travel farther west, across the Mississippi River, to hunt in lands that belonged to other tribes. As large Choctaw hunting parties began trespassing onto Caddo hunting lands, conflicts arose.

The Caddo, weakened by disease, could not block Choctaw hunters from invading their lands and raiding their settlements (Caldwell 2020: 8). By 1790, Choctaw hunting parties ranged deeper into Caddo territory, crossing into East Texas and raiding Caddo and Tonkawa villages for horses and cattle to bring back to American traders (Smith 2005: 60; Kinnaird 1980: 351). Conflict would continue between the Choctaw and Caddo throughout the 1790s in Louisiana and East Texas.

Choctaws were also under various pressures: land loss, pressure from settlers, and internal tribal politics. Texas offered a chance for Choctaws to live in smaller, independent communities alongside other tribal groups who were also resisting US control. Not all Choctaws accepted the path laid out by U.S. policy and Choctaw leaders. Texas offered an alternative.

The Haiyowvni, or cutworm in the Choctaw language, was a group of Choctaw who lived in the southern district of the Choctaw Nation. Their home was the closest village to French Mobile and in the 1720s had a Jesuit Missionary living in the village as well as a French trading post. We do not know why, but in 1763, a large group of Haiyowvni left Mississippi and traveled to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana where they lived alongside emigrating bands of Biloxi and Alabama peoples (Smith 2005: 20).

Soon after, they moved west to Bayou Bouef, southwest of what is today, Natchitoches, LA. It is possible that they moved due to the 1765 Treaty of Mobile, where Great Britian deceptively tricked the Choctaw Nation into ceding its lands stretching along the gulf coast from Mobile, across the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River. On Bayou Bouef, the Haiyowvni planted crops and raised livestock for roughly three decades (Smith 2005: 20).

In 1797, the pressure from American settlers would force the Haiyowvni on Bayou Bouef to sell 2,600 acres of land on both sides of the bayou for $200 in goods (Smith 2005:64). Meanwhile, the Fulton and Miller trading company opened its doors to the Native people living on Bayou Bouef.

Over the next few years, the Haiyowvni and others began to incur debts. In 1802, the Fulton and Miller Company forced the Haiyowvni to sell the remainder of their lands, totaling 41,284 acres for $3,724 (Smith 2005: 64-65). Now forced to leave their homes, they traveled westward toward a prairie where they reestablished their village, planted fields, built fences, and began raising livestock again (Smith 2005: 65). In 1803 the United States gained control of Louisiana. Groups of Apalaches, Taensas, Alabamas, Coushattas, Haiyowvni Choctaws, Pascagoulas, and Biloxi’s began to immigrate to East Texas to keep out of reach of the American settlers (Smith 2005: 67).

In 1804, a group of 200 Haiyowvni Choctaws established two to three small villages between the Trinity and Neches Rivers (Smith 2005: 69). Soon after, the Spanish granted the Choctaws and other emigrating groups permission to continue to live in their new villages. As more Choctaws moved to Louisiana, additional villages were settled along the Neches, Angelina, and Attoyac Rivers in East Texas.

By 1820, large groups of Cherokee, Choctaws, Shawnee, Delaware, Kickapoo, Quapaw, Biloxi, Iowa, Tohookatokie, Alabama and Coushatta had settled about forty miles north of Nacogdoches, TX (Hale 1987: 9). In 1821, Mexico had won its war for independence from Spain and sought to build relationships with the Tribes in East Texas. After meeting the Choctaw people, Mexican Diplomat Juan N. Almont was impressed and wrote a letter stating that the Choctaw would be desirable citizens of Mexico (Caldwell 2020: 17).

Back in Mississippi and Alabama, the Choctaw Nation was forced to sign the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. One year later, the Choctaw removal in our homelands would begin. More than 700 Choctaw people migrated to Texas instead of coming to Indian Territory. They would join ten to fifteen other families who had previously migrated before 1830 (Carlisle 2021). These groups would settle in large communities near the modern Texas towns of Patroon, Center, Enterprise.

In 1835, Sam Houston helped negotiate a treaty with the East Texas Tribes, including the Choctaw, to ensure their neutrality during the Texas Revolution. The Choctaw were signatories of the 1836 Treaty of Bowles Village with the Republic of Texas. However, the next year, the newly created Republic of Texas did not ratify the Treaty. Despite President Sam Houston’s work to create peace with the East Texas Tribes, issues between the Tribes and Texas settlers caused tension.

In 1838, the second President of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau Lamar, considered the Tribes of East Texas to be intruders and wished to remove them onto reservations in Texas or force them out of Texas into Indian Territory. The next year, he sent a regiment of 500 Texan troops to negotiate removing the East Texas Tribes. After two days of negotiations, the Texan commissioners informed the tribal delegates that the Republic of Texas would not wait any longer and that they would begin marching on the Cherokee Village where the negotiations were taking place. The Cherokee and the tribal delegation retreated north to a Delaware village hoping to continue negotiations with the Texans, however the next day the Delaware village was attacked.

Over 400 Cherokee, Shawnee, Delaware, and an unknown number of Choctaw and other Tribal warriors fought for two hours. They sacrificed themselves so their families could gain a head start retreating toward the Red River, with the hopes of crossing into the Choctaw Nation. After two hours of fighting, over 100 tribal warriors had died. The Cherokee Chief Duwali was the last warrior standing on the battlefield (Smith 2005:172). He died on the battlefield holding his sword, a gift from Sam Houston, the first President of the Republic of Texas. This massacre would be known as the Battle of the Neches.

Many Choctaws and Haiyowvni Choctaws settled in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations after their retreat from Texas. Other Haiyowvni Choctaws moved with the Caddo to the Brazos Reserve in 1854. In 1859 they would move with the Caddo again to Indian Territory and become part of the Caddo Nation. Other Haiyowvni Choctaw joined the Alabama and Coushatta in East Texas and are now part of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.

The legacy of these events continues to echo through the oral stories of Choctaw families today.

“My grandfather was given the middle name Lamar after his birth in Paris, Texas. My Father was also given the middle name Lamar when he was born and when I was born the name was also given to me. I have always cherished this gift, but the irony of the name Lamar is not lost to me. My grandfather was possible given the name because he was born in Lamar County, Texas, a county named after President Lamar who ordered the expulsion of my Haiyowavni Choctaw family from Texas and resulted in the death of 5th great grandfather, Chief Atahobia, at the Battle of the Neches (personal communication, Ryan Lamar Spring, 2025).

Remembering familial stories such as this reflects the enduring influence of Texas’s early history on the generations that followed. These Texas Choctaw Communities’ experiences are an example of the strategies that Native communities used to navigate and resist colonial expansion and stand as a testament to the strength and identities of Choctaw people today.

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