James Lawrence McDonald (c. 1801 — September 1831) was a member of the Choctaw Nation and the first Native leader of his generation to be trained in the American legal system.
[1] McDonald urged the U.S. Congress to protect the rights of Native Americans and delayed the removal of his tribe from ancestral lands.
As an advisor to Choctaw chiefs and eventual lawyer of the tribe, McDonald successfully negotiated peace treaties with the United States federal government.
[2] His career marked the birth of a new approach to federal power, and by extension, the beginning of political activism that was to inspire tribal leaders across the continent.
Officials from the American Board missionaries reported that attempts to give Indians an English education had not been very successful as many students went home to their "amusements and former follies.
James L. McDonald gained the attention of other prominent figures of the time, such as Thomas L. McKenney, the U.S. superintendent of Indian Trade.
Their relationship as federal employees evolved into friendship, and the Superintendent treated the young Choctaw as an adopted son by giving him a home and a "white job.
[14] In exchange, the federal government agreed to use the profits from the sale of the Mississippi lands to construct Choctaw schools for the tribe's youth.
She complained to her son, who then contacted Calhoun about the reciprocity and government protection if they were Indians' private property; months later she received compensation for the slave.
[17] In November 1824, McDonald wrote Calhoun about Choctaw opinions that concerned ceding land and protection by Federal law.
John Calhoun was actively campaigning for the presidency, and hoped that securing ceded lands for Mississippi would give him a political advantage.
The members involved in this process included Choctaw tribal leaders and James L. McDonald who served as both interpreter and legal aide.
This left the negotiations to mixed-blood Indians, David Folsom, Robert Cole, and James L. McDonald—who believed that the access of education would allow the next generation of Choctaws to compete with the expectations of American society.
In this declaration, McDonald acknowledged the United States' growing power and admitted that "the time must come" when [Indians] would be "made to become like white men" but the tribe was "not doomed to extinction".
He also argued that the federal government had a duty to protect tribal rights based on the founding principles of liberty and equality.
In October 1831, the American Board missionary wrote that McDonald "had been indulging in his dissipated habits and he drowned himself, having previously expressed the conviction that 'his damnation was sealed.".
[24] In his 1848 memoirs Thomas McKenney suggested that after a white woman in Jackson rejected his proposal for marriage, "with promptness, and, as he thought, with scorn," McDonald, "rushed to the river, sprang off a bluff and drowned himself!