In English, the official name for the area was “Choctaw Nation”, as outlined in Article III of the 1866 Reconstruction Treaty following the Civil War.

Officially a domestic dependent nation since 1971, in July 2020 the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that the eastern area of Oklahoma—about half of the modern state—never lost its status as a Native reservation.

While the current Chief, Gary Batton, disagrees that denying citizenship to the Freedmen is a race issue,[16] this ignores the historical racist legacy of the Dawes Rolls.

[26] These districts were abolished at the time of statehood, as tribal government and land claims were dissolved in order for the territory to be admitted as a state.

In 2018 Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar announced the Choctaw-Ireland Scholarship Programme – an opportunity for Choctaw students to study in Ireland.

[36] In 2015 a sculpture known as Kindred Spirits was erected in the town of Midleton, County Cork, Ireland to commemorate the Choctaw Nation's donation.

Wages and benefits expenditures were over $838 million,[38] with total revenues from tribal businesses and governmental entities was expected to be $2.45 billion in fiscal year 2023.

The Choctaw Nation has helped build water systems and towers, roads and other infrastructure, and has contributed to additional fire stations, EMS units and law enforcement needs that have accompanied economic growth.

The tribe also operates eight Indian clinics, one each in Atoka, Broken Bow, Durant, Hugo, Idabel, McAlester, Poteau, and Stigler.

“They are a shining example of how employers and communities can go that extra mile for our military personnel.”[44] The Choctaw were recognized as a sovereign nation under the protection of the United States with the Treaty of Hopewell in 1786.

At Jackson's personal request, the United States Congress opened a fierce debate on an Indian Removal Bill.

"[47] Jackson appointed Eaton and General John Coffee as commissioners to represent him to meet the Choctaws at the Dancing Rabbit Creek near present-day Noxubee County, Mississippi.

It shall be theirs forever... and all who wish to remain as citizens [shall have] reservations laid out to cover [their improv]ements; and the justice due [from a] father to his red children will [be awarded to] them.

Each Choctaw head of a family being desirous to remain and become a citizen of the States, shall be permitted to do so, by signifying his intention to the Agent within six months from the ratification of this Treaty, and he or she shall thereupon be entitled to a reservation of one section of six hundred and forty acres of land.... —Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, 1830On September 27, 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed.

The act delineated Indian Territory, where the U.S. federal government forcibly relocated tribes from across the United States, including Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands (such as the Natchez, Yuchi, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole).

In 1834, U.S. Congress defined the first Indian Territory,[56] with the Five Civilized Tribes occupying the land that eventually became the State of Oklahoma, excluding its panhandle.

Allen Wright (principal chief of the Choctaw Republic from late 1866 to 1870) lived much of his early life with Kingsbury at Doaksville and the mission school at Pine Ridge.

By today's standards, it might be a million dollars," wrote Judy Allen in 1992, editor of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's newspaper, Bishinik.

In Spring 1855, the ABCFM sent Dr. George Warren Wood to visit the Choctaw Mission in Oklahoma to resolve a crisis over the abolition issue.

[citation needed][62] The Oklahoma Historical Society claims that Doaksville began to decline in importance in 1854, when the U.S. Army abandoned Fort Towson.

Angie Debo, author of The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic, wrote: "Taken as a whole the generation from 1833 to 1861 presents a record of orderly development almost unprecedented in the history of any people.

The Act also set aside a timber reserve, which might be sold at a later time; it specifically excluded coal and asphalt lands from allotment.

Hunter and Dr. E. N Wright, for the Choctaw; and Ruford Bond, Franklin Bourland, George W. Burris, Walter Colbert and Estelle Ward, for the Chickasaw to determine how to address their concerns.

[69] After meeting to prepare the recommendation, the committee broke with precedent when it sent Czarina Conlan (Choctaw) and Estelle Chisholm Ward (Chickasaw) to Washington to argue in favor of passage of a bill proposed by U.S. House Representative Wilburn Cartwright.

[72] When Harry J. W. Belvin was appointed chief of the Choctaw in 1948 by the Secretary of the Interior, he realized that only federally recognized tribes were allowed to file a claim with the Commission.

He created a democratically elected tribal council and a constitution to re-establish a government, but his efforts were opposed by the Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

As time wore on, Belvin realized that the bill severed the tribe members' access to government loans and other services, including the tribal tax exemption.

Republican President Richard Nixon, long sympathetic to American Indian rights, ended the government's push for termination.

1975 also marked the year that the United States Congress passed the landmark Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which had been supported by Nixon before he resigned his office due to the Watergate scandal.

With the Muscogee and Cherokee nations, the Choctaw successfully sued the federal and state government over riverbed rights to the Arkansas River.