Living in the Land of Death: The Choctaw Nation, 1830-1860

In 30 years the Choctaw nation suffered much, and its survival in any form is remarkable. Marching from Mississippi to Indian Territory ("The Land of Death") cost one out of five Choctaws their lives; violence and disease in the Land of Death cost the nation many of its traditional elders and disrupted the largely matrilineal society. In time a subsistence economy developed, and some families became plantation owners and slave holders. However, as Akers (history, Purdue U.) explains, whether they barely survived or became rich, Choctaws had to contend with those who had been in the Land of Death before them. Years of enmity and violence marked the relations of the nations (rather than mutual resistance of the self-serving white minority that had thrown them together). Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR