They built complex, dense villages supporting a stratified society, with centers throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys and their tributaries.

[13] Settling upon the river provided the people with a symbolic sense of new beginngings, washing away the past of the proto-Chickasaw and entering into a new modern age of the Chickasaw.

Historian Arrell Gibson and anthropologist John R. Swanton believed the Chickasaw Old Fields were in Madison County, Alabama.

Another version of the Chickasaw creation story is that they arose at Nanih Waiya, a great earthwork mound built about 300 CE by Woodland peoples.

The first European contact with the Chickasaw was in 1540 when Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto encountered the tribe and stayed in one of their towns, most likely near present-day Starkville, Mississippi.

Following the American Revolutionary War, in 1793–94, the Chickasaw under Chief Piomingo fought as allies of the new United States under General Anthony Wayne against the Indians of the old Northwest Territory.

A 19th-century historian, Horatio Cushman, wrote, "Neither the Choctaws nor Chicksaws ever engaged in war against the American people, but always stood as their faithful allies."

[19] That theory, however, does not have consensus; archeological research, as noted above, has revealed the peoples had long histories in the Mississippi area and independently developed complex cultures.

"[21] The Chickasaw made their first formal contact with the British shortly after the founding of Charles Town in 1670; this occurred when Dr. Woordward of Carolina attempted to establish trade ties while on course to Alabama.

[22] Although the British outpost of Charles Town was located over 850 km from Chickasaw territory, the two groups managed to engage initially in an exchange of deerskin.

[20] In 1797, a general appraisal of the tribe and its territorial bounds was made by Abraham Bishop of New Haven, who wrote: The Chickasaws are a nation of Indians who inhabit the country on the east side of the Mississippi, on the head branches of the Tombeckbe [sic], Mobille, and Yazoo rivers.

Due to settlers encroaching into Chickasaw territory, the United States constructed Fort Hampton in 1810 in present-day Limestone County, Alabama.

In the mid-18th century, an American-born trader of Scots and Chickasaw ancestry by the name of James Logan Colbert settled in the Muscle Shoals area of Alabama.

[32] Chickasaw chiefs and high-status women found such marriages of strategic benefit to the tribe, as it gave them advantages with traders over other groups.

Colbert and his wives had numerous children, including seven sons: William, Jonathan, George, Levi, Samuel, Joseph, and Pittman (or James).

Property and hereditary leadership passed through the maternal line, and the mother's eldest brother was the main male mentor of the children, especially of boys.

An example is that more than 40 chiefs from the Chickasaw Council, representing clans and villages, signed a letter in November 1832 by Levi Colbert to President Andrew Jackson, complaining about treaty negotiations with his appointee General John Coffee.

George "Tootesmastube" Colbert never reached the Chickasaw's "Oka Homa" (red waters); he died on Choctaw territory, Fort Towson, en route.

[35] In 1836 after a bitter five-year debate within the tribe, the Chickasaw had reached an agreement to purchase land in Indian Territory from the previously removed Choctaw.

When the Chickasaw reached Indian Territory, the United States began to administer to them through the Choctaw Nation, and later merged them for administrative reasons.

In 1861, as tensions rose related to the sectional conflict, the US Army abandoned Fort Washita, leaving the Chickasaw Nation defenseless against the Plains tribes.

But he, as soon as the Confederate troops had entered our country, at once abandoned us and the Fort; and, to make his flight more expeditious and his escape more sure, employed Black Beaver, a Shawnee Indian, under a promise to him of five thousand dollars, to pilot him and his troops out of the Indian country safely without a collision with the Texas Confederates; which Black Beaver accomplished.

Although originally the western boundary of the Choctaw Nation extended to the 100th meridian, virtually no Chickasaw lived west of the Cross Timbers.

[38] Because the Chickasaw allied with the Confederacy, after the Civil War the United States government required the nation to make a new peace treaty in 1866.

It included the provision that they emancipate the enslaved African Americans and provide full citizenship to those who wanted to stay in the Chickasaw Nation.

Because the Chickasaw Nation did not provide citizenship to their Freedmen after the Civil War (it would have been akin to formal adoption of individuals into the tribe), they were penalized by the U.S. Government.

[50] After receiving letters of complaint concerning the Chaloklowa Chickasaw Indian People's later petition for recognition as a State Recognized tribe in October 2005, the Commission of Minority Affairs review committee, upon rereview, found that the indigenous ancestry originally being claimed by the group was incorrect.

It includes the Chikasha Inchokka’ Traditional Village, Honor Garden, Sky and Water pavilion, and several in-depth exhibits about the diverse culture of the Chickasaw.

[58] After they signed the treaty of Pontotoc Creek in 1832 and were forced from their native land in Mississippi, the Chickasaw tribe immigrated to its now-home in Oklahoma.

The organizations director of archaeology, Meg Cook, addressed the MDAH’s efforts: “We’re doing everything that we can to reconcile the past and move forward, in a very transparent way.