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but Claiborne had the good sense to decline both. Nonetheless, there were threats on his life. Finally, he succeeded in having the commission adopt a plan recommended by him, allowing the Choctaws the value of their claims and paying them annual interest on the funds after their removal West.
In the process, both Claiborne and Prentiss were said to be “wrecked in fortune” (Memoirs of Mississippi). In short, “few public affairs in Mississippi have occasioned more bitterness.”
Choctaw Land Titles in Hancock County Courthouse
Records in the Hancock County archives reveal that at least fourteen Choctaw certificates were issued for land in our area of study. These were small parcels, usually amounting to about 40 acres, but a few for as much as one hundred or more acres. While the certificates are numbered and the land is described in still current township and range designations, little can be gleaned as to why or when they were issued. What is evident is that the listings were entered into the tract books when the parcels were assigned to white settlers. The assignments were dated between 1848 and 1854, most being 1851 and 1852. By and large, the assignees included people known to the area, such as Asa Russ, John Russ, and Robert Montgomery. Other assignees were Mariah Herron (Herrin), John H. Myers, Elijah Spence, Josephine Cuevas, Cornelia Williams, Samuel Hays, James Taylor, and Mary Lampkin. It is curious, perhaps, that a number of these are women. (Tract Books 1 and 2, Hancock County Courthouse)
Even though the records contain a column for “purchase money,” they do not indicate any payment for the assignments except in the case of the Asa Russ purchase. This was for certificate number 588, dated April 1, 1852. The grantee had been Hus Ke Ah Hock Tuk, and the price was 50 cents per acre, totaling $79.84 for the 159.69 acres.
A very interesting aspect of the above purchase is that this land was situated just north of the 16th section on which the Russ Place was located (later called Sea Song Plantation and now Buccaneer Park). A second listing, in Tract Book 2, apparently for the same parcel, gives a date of October 27, 1854. On the same page is listed Section 16, but with no entries as to ownership, perhaps because it could only be leased, not sold. It would seem that Asa Russ was adding to the property that he had already acquired, or was soon to acquire, by lease.
Several of the other assignments were for land in what are now Clermont Harbor and the western extreme of Waveland. Others were for parcels in the Pearl River area, above Napoleon, and in the northern part of the county.
An open question is why the Choctaw grantees assigned away the rights to their lands. Besides the indication that only Asa paid anything, Simon Favre, in his will, mentions land “given” to him by the Indians. Some possible answers may be found in a study done by Angie Debo. She indicates that in 1845, a delegation including chief Nitakechi was sent from their new home in the west, back in Mississippi, “to induce the remaining Choctaws to join their brethren in the West....The Choctaws were mainly an agricultural people. A few had been slave owners in Mississippi. Some of the leaders who had received special land grants under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek sold these farms and purchased slaves with the proceeds.... A large number of Eastern Choctaws finally consented to emigrate, and the most important removals since 1833 took place during 1845-1847. It was reported that 3,824 joined their western kinsman at that time, and in the Fifties a few hundred more followed them to the new home.” (Choctaw Republic, by Angie Debo)
As noted above, a number of Choctaws remained, but lived in misery. Poor and starving, their plight in neighboring St. Tammany Parish is amply described in a book called Chahta Ima. Located just across the Pearl River from Hancock County, their story was told by the New Orleans poet-priest Adrien Rouquette, who ran the blockades across Lake Pontchartrain to bring food and medicine to some of the dying remnants of the once proud nation.
There is little hard evidence of mid-nineteenth century interaction between the Choctaws and the settlers of the lower Pearl River area. In all the letters of the Koch Family and those of the Andrew Jackson, Jr. family there is scarcely a mention of local Indians, although Koch