I thought I answered your post yesterday. I must have forgotten to click the button.
As you can see, since it had been about fifteen years since I had read the account, my memory was not exactly clear. I was amazed that I found the following. I remembered that at the time I had done some research on Choctow script.
American leaders in Washington did not want the potential for pogroms mentioned below to exist inside the United States. What seems brutal now makes a little more sense in context of the times. The war mentioned below was not the only one.
The Trail of Tears was bad, but not nearly as bad as what Federal troops inflicted on Southern civilians during the Civil War. That has been hidden from the history books.
When Europeans first came over, it was reported that the Cherokees were farmers and were living in houses.
from: Chronicles of Oklahoma, Chief Coleman Cole —
“About the year 1775, the Chickasaws aided by a few Choctaws, concluded a three years’ war with the Shakchi-Hummas, whom they greatly outnumbered, by a surprise attack on the Indian village of Oski Hlopal and in a merciless engagement lasting throughout the day massacred practically the entire membership of that tribe. A few women and children were spared and taken over and adopted by the Choctaws, but the Shakchi-Hummas as a tribal entity were completely erased. During these crucial hours, Roscoe Cole, the white captive, was enabled to effect his escape from the carnage and from his enforced residence among the Indians, by the aid of Shumaka,4 his self-sacrificing Indian wife, the details of which are shrouded. He faded away in an aura of mystery which has never been penetrated, but his was not an exceptional instance. Not infrequently, the captive white man waved good bye to civilization and kindred, took an Indian woman for a wife and finished nobody knows where. Many an Indian Chief’s folks on his father’s side wore high top boots and a white shirt. Shumaka was saved from massacre and this, it is recorded, was because of her beauty. Taking her five children, she went to live among the Choctaws.”