Red Shoes (Choctaw chief)

The Choctaw once laid claim to millions of acres of land and established some 50 towns in present-day Mississippi and western Alabama.

The peoples who became known as the Choctaws (Chahtas) originally lived as separate societies throughout east-central Mississippi and west-central Alabama and all spoke dialects of the Muskogean language.

The French of necessity had intimate dealings with the Choctaw from the time when Louisiana was first colonized, and the relations between the two peoples were usually friendly.

The hunters came away from the trading table with little to show, sometimes even empty handed, after months of hard work to obtain the deer hides and furs.

Their leader, Mingo Tchito, turned a blind eye, but he was infuriated when the French could not supply the customary chief's gifts.

These developments led to a pro-British party factions formed among the Choctaw, partly because the prices charged by British traders operating from the Carolinas were lower than those placed upon French goods.

This effort was led by noted chief, Red Shoes, and lasted for a considerable time, culminating in his assassination and one of the principal Choctaw towns being burned to the ground before it came to an end with the defeat of the pro-British faction in 1750.

[1] As a youth, Red Shoes learned that it was necessary to cooperate with the French if one wanted to escape being enslaved by Chickasaw and Muscogee slave raiding parties.

After the taking of many Chickasaw scalps, Shulush Homa stood in Couechitto town and received a new name, Soulouche Oumastabe.

It was a very dangerous game of survival these two played and Red Shoes emerged as the leader after a series of crisis plagued Couechitto after 1729.

In June 1747, a pack train bearing British presents from Charles Town approached the Choctaw Nation.

Rivalries over trade with France and Britain caused the rift in Choctaw society, primarily between the western and eastern divisions, that lasted from 1747 to 1750.