Im very excited to introduce her to you. She stuck to Fay Yarbrough professor of history and an associate dean at rice university. Dr. Yabra as an expert on 19th century native american history, and shes got special interest in the interactions between Indigenous People and people of african descent during the 19th century. So her first book was race and the Cherokee Nation sovereignty in the 19th century, and her most recent book is called choctaw confederates the American Civil War in indian country. And of course you recognize the title. That book is the subject of tonights talk and its also basically brand new. I noticed its official publication date was exactly two weeks ago. So its a twoweek birthday for your book this evening and were excited to share it with you. You can find it in all of the usual bookstore places as well as directly from the university of north carolina, press the publisher. So the talk will be around 30 to 35 minutes or so. Well have plenty of time for discussion at the end and the way we do discussion if youve been to these events before youll know we do all through the q a feature in zoom so you can type in questions to the q a box at any time. So if something occurs to you during the talk, feel free to type it and then ill wait till the end and we will get to as many of your questions as we can. Well wrap things up within about an hour and 15 minutes. So around 8 15 eastern time. So thats all from me. I just want to say have grateful. I am that dr. Yabra is able to be with us tonight. Its a wonderful book. Ive enjoyed reading it. Im looking forward to hearing the authors perspective on the book as well. And without further ado i will turn over the virtual podium to dr. Yabra. So thank you very much for being with us. Thank you so much and good evening everyone. Its a pleasure to be with you. If only virtually id like to thank you for spending some of your time with me this evening, and id like to thank professor paul quigley for inviting me and id also like to thank professor Melinda Miller for a really stimulating fun chat this afternoon as a prelude to my talk tonight. So ill share some slides with you and in a moment, but first i want to just share the the introduction of my paper. Then just as we started to leave here comes something across that Little Prairie short enough. We know they as indians the way they is writing and the way they is all strung out. They had a flag and it was all read and had a big crisscross on it. That looked like a sawhorse. The man carrying it and rear back on it when the wind whip it but it flap all around the horses head and the horse pitch and rear like he knows something going to happen short. About that time it turned kind of dark and began to rain a little and we get out to the big road and the rain come down hard it rained so hard for a little while that we just have to stop the wagon and set there. And then come along more soldiers than i ever see before. They all white men, i think and they have on that brown clothes dyed with walnut and butternut and old master say they the confederate soldiers. Lucinda davis enslaved by tuskegee toscaya, heniha a full blood creek indian offers one of the few existing accounts of the battle of Honey Springs in late july of 1863. She describes seeing native troops approach carrying the confederate battle flag the changing weather conditions and the arrival of white confederate troops. Her account goes on to explain the roar of gunfire that sounded like horses lopeman cross a plank bridge way off somewhere. Davis offers compelling testimony about the farreaching and destructive power of battle on the civilian population and on the landscape, but what i am most interested in tonight is the experience of native soldiers. What do we know of those soldiers on horseback whos writing style was so distinctive that davis and her fellow spectators identified them as indians from a distance. What can we say about their experiences in the Confederate Army . To answer these questions. I will turn to the Service Records from National Archives compiled Service Records of confederate soldiers who served and organizations raised directly by the confederate government. From the outside outset. However, these records are something of a misnomer this title suggests that authorities from the Confederate States of america listed these troops into service. However, choctaw legislative documents from the era revealed that choctaw spent a great deal of time talking about their commitment to the Confederate States of america and raising this force. So here i will share screen so that we can make sure were all on the same page about where we are in terms of location. So im most interested in the choctaw nation which you can see here in this the south east corner of indian territory at this time. And i focus on the choctaws because of their strong commitment to the confederacy, which is what i explore in the larger book project. Here is my moment of shameless selfpromotion dr. Quigley did some for me but this talk and more on this subject can be found in in my new book chalk talk confederates and the strength of their commitment which we can talk about in the q a i think is best exemplified by the fact that they pass the statute deeming it treason to say anything negative about the confederacy, right . Thats how strongly they are committed to the confederate cause so as a separate sovereign nation with its own constitution judicial system and Bicameral Legislature choctaw legislators could choose to align with the federal government or the confederacy or attempt to remain neutral altogether during the war. They early allied with the confederacy and agreed to place a regimen of choctaw troops numbering a thousand men under confederate officers with the confederate confederacy committing to pay 500,000 to arm and equipcent troops. Which authorities choctaw or confederate then enlisted these troops as less clear than the records title suggest which will also be demonstrated by examining the actual enlistment documents, which ill show you in a moment. In addition, i supplement the Service Records with firsthand accounts from civil war soldiers more broadly to create a fuller picture of choctaw soldiers experiences. The majority of these enlistment records consist of preprinted forms compiled by the War Department to facilitate efficiently and rapidly determining determining individual eligibility for pensions and other veterans benefits. The records include a jacket with the soldiers name company and rank and lists other cards associated with his record. There were sufficient numbers of choctaw troops that the preprinted portion of the jacket or envelope stated first choctaw mounted rifles also known as calvary with confederate and parentheses. The jacket often contains a fill in the blank Style Company muster roll the company name and information appear preprinted on this form as well the form list of the date location and term of enlistment. So here ill give you an example of one record from private filimi of the Second Company k and you can see on his record that hes listed as age 30 that he enlisted on june 12 1861 at Sulfur Springs blue county for 12 months. Hes enlisted by eschatinihoma and you can see that theres info from his Company Muster Roll from july 26th 1862. So these are the records that form the backbone of this talk on military experience for choctaw soldiers and is also an important part of the larger book contract a book project. And if you see the i just want you to have a little sympathy for me because i looked through thousands of these records, you know in this kind of reverse, you know, black background white writing with the handwriting on there and compiled them into a database. So especially useful in these records is the remarks section in most cases. It merely states a finalistic was present at the end of his term of service, but sometimes it includes rich tidbits about soldiers being absent without leave about promotions or work duties a frequently included payroll form stated whether the soldier received a commutation for clothing for six months generally in the amount of 25 sometimes a bounty pay and receipt rule for 50 is on file as well along with petitions for official correspondence regarding the soldier less frequently. There are other miscellaneous documents often handwritten that are included in the soldiers jacket and i spent a little bit of time giving you this description of these records because theres often this misconception that there arent a lot of records regarding native populations that are available, but in fact there are and we can do a number of things in terms of creative reading of the records that we do have. Are looking more deeply to see if there are other records that we might be able to find and combine with other information to create a fuller picture of native experience. So again, just to remind you of the kinds of information thats in these records available through national. So given our time constraints today. I will touch briefly on some of the info that you can glean from these records first the records indicate that more choctaw served for the confederacy than we previously knew second. The records can give us some sense of changes taking place in choctaw society. We can also use the records to infer connections between people who served and in particular i will take up i will look at what the records can tell us about enlistments and how fluctuations and enlistments could vary based on battle and political activity most importantly the records provide a glimpse at the comp at the experiences of common soldiers in the civil war and remind us that the war was not just a rupture between northern and Southern States, but that other groups native groups were drawn into the dispute. So the contemporary choctaw nation estimates that approximately 1200 choctaw troops served on the side of the confederacy by the middle of the civil war. Ive collected the Service Records of over 3100 individuals for the totality of the war and these 3100 troops translate to roughly 17. 2 of the total population or 20 of the choctaw population if you exclude enslaved persons in the United States soldiers accounted for approximately 14 of the northern population and 8. 3 of the confederacy and border states if one excludes the enslaved population of the south however, 12. 5 southerners served in the confederacy, so i point this out to say that wow that 3100 choctaw soldiers might seem like a small number as a proportion of the population. Its actually quite large and and substantial. So this figure though of 3100 troops is much lower than the 10,000 troops that colonel Douglas H Cooper predicted that the choctaws and chickasaws would provide in a letter to the president of the confederacy jeff davis a number all the more astonishing given the combined population of the choctaw and chickasaw populations at this time was less than 23,000 people including their enslaved populations cooper wrote the choctaws and chickasaws can furn 10,000 warriors if needed the choctaws and chickasaws are extremely anxious to form another regiment. The data included in the compiled military Service Records. Tell us not only about individual soldiers, but can reveal aspects of the changing nature of choctaw society. So for instance the names on these records can simultaneously demonstrate the influence of euroamericans and the resilience of traditional naming practices. So here is an example of some of the names that we can see on in these records. So youll see names such as john simpson several Thomas Jeffersons age Jefferson Davis a private h25, but all so more traditional names like cubby or ehan tubby or hiyo. Kanubi. You see these blended names right where theres a euro a european route of a name, but then combined with choctaw language name and then you also see surnames of prom families within the choctaw political arenas so the fulsoms laforce and mccurtains are important families that produce district or principal chiefs and the choctaw nation during the 19th century. So again something as simple as these names on these enlistment records can reveal a broader changes that were taking place in choctaw society. The age data on soldiers from the first choctaw and chickasaw mounted rifles also provides some opportunity for comparison with similar data on american soldiers and ill just summarize to say that choctaw soldiers the average age of enlistees was just a little bit older than the average age of enlistees in the union army and then based on what little data we have on confederate soldiers. That Jim Mcpherson has compiled again. We can see that theyre slightly older than their american countered parts. The age plus named data can also reveal relationships between soldiers where it suggests relationships between soldiers. So theres a cluster of five greenwood enlistees h20 to 28. We wonder if alan Gibson Harris hogan and sesan greenwood who all mustered into the same company 1e on the same day, july 3rd 1861 at the same location at blackjack court ground. Were all related to each other where they brothers or cousins who enlisted together similarly Joseph Hunter h43 and style and hunter aged 18 both joined may tubbys company at goodland station on september 2nd 1864. Could they have been a father and son in hopes joining together in hopes of watching out for one another these sources are modeling maddeningly sil. Out such connections, but other data from the indian pioneer History Collection, which is very similar to the wpa. Slave narratives, but the informants and the indian pioneer History Collection are people who lived in indian territory during the 19th century. That data along with personal personal papers can augment some of these military records to confirm relationships and we know for certain that in both the union and the confederate armies family members did join together cousins brothers fathers and sons so we shouldnt be surprised that we see similar kinds of patterns these records in the choctaw nation. So the another kind of record that seems another piece of data that seems fairly straightforward is the question of company assignment, right . So individuals mustered into company a or to the second k or the second d. But as was common among many other confederate troops choctaw companies were also known by names connected to their commanding officers. So captain senta now was company for example was also known as walking state company, but also known as company i we have other companies captain colemani nelsons company or captain edmund gardners company or our captain shimontha and parentheses john gibsons company these Company Names were preprinted on these enlisted and enlistment records. So again reinforcing how frequently they occur and that people knew these companies by these other names and the use of i again, i think of choctaw language and english names is all so no noteworthy. So cinti is snake and choctaw and noah means walk so that walking snake and captain sent anoes name walking snake company and sentineloas company is a translation of of his name. And so i think its interesting to ponder that that the traditional choctaw language name was was included similarly. Shimon to may come from the choctaw word shima which means to dress up or embellish and so perhaps this john gibson. Also known as captain simone says company is again a recognition of a traditional choctaw nation. So again the presence of these choctaw traditional names on these civil war military records exemplifies how much this quintessentially american event included other people who did not identify as americans. The date on the and on these records the date in place of muster record. Reveals patterns about when and where soldiers enlisted into this mounted rifle group almost 70 of the records include this information, which only makes sense if you think about trying to keep track of how long peoples enlistment period is supposed to laugh last you definitely want to keep track of when and where they enlisted so that you know when their term of service should end so we can see in these records that the majority of the enlistments took place in 1861, june and july were especially popular months to enlist 950 soldiers enlisted in these two months alone. And the this choctaw enthusiasm for the confederacy is even more remarkable given that the choctaws did not sign a treaty with the confederacy until july of 1861. So there are choctaw men who are committing to fight in the war even before the Choctaw Legislature had officially sided with the confederacy. So again, the enthusiasm is is high. Historian angie debo notes that the work of consolidating indian support began before any formal treaties were signed between the choctaw indians and the confederate government the choctaw government had already passed a resolution and support of the Southern States in february of 1861 though. The formal Treaty Alliance would not come for five more months. So perhaps getting these men to wasnt a difficult task. Surely the choctaw resolution was then response to the february 4th meeting of six Southern States in montgomery to form a provisional government and establish the Confederate States of america so that resolution of support must have been in response to this meeting the choctaws may have been waiting for the secating states to create a more formal body before expressing choctaw support. Us indian agent Douglas H Cooper enrolled natives for service as e