David Folsom was one of the early leaders of the Choctaw tribe and was instrumental in negotiating the treaty that gave them a new homeland in Oklahoma.
He was born Jan. 25, 1791 in Bok Tuklo, Choctaw Nation (MS), a descendant of Nathaniel Folsom, a white trader who had pioneered the West from Rowan County, N.C., by way of Georgia. Nathaniel likely was a descendant of the pre-revolutionary Folsom family who immigrated to Massachusetts from England. Nathaniel married two Choctaw Indian sisters who claimed heritage from a long line of chiefs.
Nathaniel, highly regarded among the people who adopted him , multiplied prolifically, siring 24 descendants. The Choctaws labeled him “Father of all Folsoms.”
When David was about 7, he lived with his sister, Molly, and her husband, Samuel Mitchell, a U.S. Indian agent. He stayed three years, learned to speak very good English and showed remarkable musical talent.
After returning home, he worked on his father’s homestead at Pigeon Roost, MS, making his own money raising crops. Nathaniel hired a tutor to help the precocious David for a short time, but finally David left at 16 to go to school in Tennessee. He could only afford to stay six months, then returned to help Nathaniel at his tavern and trading post.
David, himself a half-blood, married Rhoda Nail, daughter of Henry Nail, a Revolutionary War standout, and his Choctaw wife. David was the first Indian married under the white man’s, not tribal law.
David served three years in the Indian Wars, commissioned by General Andrew Jackson and fighting with him and beside the great Choctaw chief Pushmataha in the Battle of Pensacola. David left with the rank of colonel, a title that honored him the rest of his life.
A Christian and great advocate of education, David induced Presbyterian missionaries to settle in the rural Mississippi area and build several Christian schools, one near his own home. He often put up missionaries in his own house and taught them the Choctaw language. David’s children no doubt benefited from their educated guests.
Students at the Mayhew mission wrote to Folsom after he had visited: “We rejoice to think that we have a chief who is a friend to his people, and wishes their good, and favors the schools in the nation. Had it not been for you and the friends of the mission, we think we should have been wandering about in the wilderness.”
David, along with the other mixed bloods, were greatly influenced by protestant missionaries, such as Cyrus Kingsbury. They intermarried and were converted to their religion while maintaining the better qualities of Indian culture, their honesty, independence and other tribal ways.
At Folsom’s new home near Yoknokchaya on Robinson Road, tribe members raised cotton, made cloth and operated blacksmith shops, but still enjoyed their visiting, singing, feasting and playing their traditional stickball games.
Strife had begun within the tribe. The full bloods wished to retain their native ways. The mixed-blood leaders, such as the Folsoms, Louis LeFlore and John Pitchlynn, favored a more educated and civilized life for the tribe, while retaining their beloved homeland in Mississippi.
The issue of slavery also split the tribe further -- well-off “aristocratic” landowners, such as John Pitchlynn, who owned 200 acres and 50 slaves, were swayed by desire to keep their plantations. Chief Mushulatubee owned 10 slaves for his 30 acres. Most of the members of the nation, however, lived off the land communally, an issue that would erupt again when the idea of dividing the future Oklahoma land into individual allotments came up.
Land-hungry white pioneers, however, were lobbying President Jackson, to move the Choctaws out of Mississippi westward. Similar removals were being sought against other tribes including the Creeks of Alabama, Cherokees of Tennessee and Kentucky, and Seminoles of Florida.
Folsom became a very powerful person and respected as a Christian man and an eloquent, passionate speaker for his causes. He was beginning to see the ultimate reality of the cessation of the Mississippi homeland and tempered his position in order to gain favorable terms in the inevitable treaty . He sought rights for the poor, as well as the rich and remained committed to the idea of progress for the tribe.
The Choctaw nation was approaching a state of civil war, with removal, slavery, education and religion splintering the tribe at a time when it needed to be united to withstand the white man’s insurgence. The State of Mississippi sought to impose its own law on tribe members living within the state boundaries.
As tensions mounted, Folsom again stepped up and showed his leadership. In a show-down between the Indian factions, hundreds of warriors armed with guns, bows and arrows faced off. However, Folsom offered his hand to his opponent, Nitakechi, who accepted it. The two opposing sides built a fire, held council, and a civil war was averted.
He showed similar diplomacy when dealing with the government. Negotiations, led in part by Folsom for the Indians and President Jackson for the United States, finally settled the issue of ceding land in Mississippi and removal of the tribe to Oklahoma.
On Sept. 27, 1825, David was among the Choctaw chiefs and delegates who signed or “made their marks” on the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. It was the beginning of what has come to be known as the Trail of Tears that Indians followed on their harsh journey into the western wilderness.
In 1826, David Folsom was elected chief of the northern district. He had charge of the first of three groups moving to Oklahoma. In the fall of 1831, the group was ravaged by “white man’s” diseases, hunger, blizzards and floods before arriving in what would become southeastern Oklahoma, their numbers greatly reduced.
Other tribal members also survived the ordeal, including Nathaniel, who settled at Mountain Fork, later called Eagle Town, Red River County, I.T. Nathaniel died there Oct. 9, 1833. Rhoda Folsom died in 1837. David then married Jane (Jincy) Ball in 1841.
David, who had resigned his tribal post, continued to be a respected Choctaw in his new homeland and had a large influential family. Many Folsom descendants went on to achieve prominence because of public service in the tribe, law and in the ministry.
None of these were more beloved or accomplished, however, than David, who died at the age of 56 and was buried at Fort Towson cemetery. His tomb inscription reads , “He being dead yet speaketh.”
Submitted by Rusty Lang
Sources:
1. Chronicles of Oklahoma, vol.4, 1926.
2. “Choctaws and Missionaries in Mississippi, 1818-1918” by Clara Sue Kidwell, 1995, University of Oklahoma Press.
3. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April 1888.
4. “The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic,” by Angie Debo, 1934, University of Oklahoma Press.