American Indian Culture and Research Journal

During May 1978 the United States Supreme Court secured official recognition of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw as a "tribe." Those proceedings and the problems entailed emphasize the need to examine ever more carefully the rhetorical games used by different cultural groups in this country to manipulate and abuse each other. The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics and implications of the Smith John case as an extended example of these intercultural games. To this end, the first section of the article briefly recounts the legal situation. The remaining three sections address the rhetorical games, looking initially at the Mississippi strategies for sustaining control over the Choctaw culture, turning then to the reactive framework of the Choctaws, and finally moving to the defensive Choctaw strategies. The Legal Circumstance In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Choctaw people were removed from their native Southeastern homelands to Oklahoma. Trying to avoid the Cherokee tragedy of earlier years, the United States government made provisions for the Choctaws unwilling to move to remain in Mississippi; with this option those remaining would gradually sacrifice their tribal relations, security and federal assistance. This arrangement produced what is called an "absentee" band of Choctaw; that is, a splinter group of a tribe who did not move with the main body. Unable to cope without federal assistance, the absentee Choctaw requested and received federal assistance on several occasions. Through their interactions and special provisions to accommodate them, the federal government implicitly came to recognize the group as a tribal entity, thus enabling systematic and regular assistance. Until 1974 this arrangement continued.