My Loved & Hated Grandfather,
Choctaw Chief Greenwood LeFlore
Wellington – On Monday, January 20th at 6:30 p.m. at the Raymond Frye Complex, 320 N. Jefferson, the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society in Wellington will host the presentation “My Loved and Hated Grandfather, the Choctaw Chief Greenwood LeFlore” presented by Wes LeFlore, sixth great-grandson of Chief LeFlore.
Members of the community are invited to attend the free program. Contact the SCHGS at schgs@sutv.com, or check out the website at http://ks-schgs.blogspot.com/p/programs.html for more information.
From the time he was very small, Wes LeFlore’s grandfather told him the history of his ancestor, Greenwood LeFlore, and his part in Choctaw history.
“Basically, I always knew,” said Wes LeFlore, minister of the Wellington Church of Christ.
“I was proud of it. It was always a neat thing,” said Wes, “the county that I lived in was LeFlore County, Oklahoma, and folks would ask me if I was connected to the county and it gave me the opportunity to tell them the story of Greenwood LeFlore.”
Wes stated that his ancestor, Greenwood LeFlore was only half Choctaw, and sometime during Greenwood’s lifetime, the spelling of their name was changed from LeFleur, which means “the flower” to LeFlore.
Wes said that his ancestor was a controversial figure in Choctaw history
“He was hated for the same reason that he was loved,” Wes said, “in 1830, he signed the first Indian Removal Act in the United States, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek”
“Some said he never should have signed, and hated him for signing, and some understood that the only way to save the Choctaws from annihilation was to sign that treaty,” Wes said, “it has been a very mixed reaction.”
Wes said that at one time, he believed that the Choctaws had owned nearly one-third o the state of Mississippi. After the treaty was signed, they moved to a smaller reservation in the Indian Territory, which is now in the eastern part of Oklahoma.
“LeFlore County in Oklahoma is a big county,” Wes said, “but it is small compared to what it was in Mississippi.”
Wes said that his family moved to Oklahoma in 1831, but Greenwood stayed in Mississippi.
“Geographically, the lands are straight across the map from one another,” Wes said, “They walked straight across the state of Arkansas to get to LeFlore County Oklahoma.
“It was hard walking,” Wes said, “they were basically blazing a trail.”
According to Wikipedia, Greenwood LeFlore was born on June 3rd, 1800 at LeFleur’s Bluffs, Mississippi. Greenwood’s mother was Rebecca Cravatt, niece of the chief Pushmataha and his father was Louis LeFleur, an explorer and French fur trader.
At age twelve, Greenwood’s father sent him to Nashville to become educated in American schools; when he was 22, he became chief of the western district of the Choctaw Nation when it was still in Mississippi, and on March 15, 1830, he became the head chief of the entire nation.
With the election of President Andrew Jackson, in 1828, many in the Choctaw tribe realized that they would face removal from their lands or they would face annihilation.
The treaty written by Greenwood provided for the Choctaw who chose to stay in Mississippi to become United States citizens and receive land, but the government did not honor this provision, and Greenwood faced death threats. Even after his death, his body was removed from his grave and buried face down in an unknown location.
Greenwood stayed in Mississippi, settled in Carroll County and accepted United States citizenship. In the 1840’s he was elected to the state government as a legislator and senator in the 1840s. During the Civil War, he sided with the Union, even though he owned many slaves.
When he was twelve years old, Wes’s grandfather took him and the family to Mississippi to explore the Native homeland of the Choctaw’s.
“My grandpa just told me that it’s important to know where you came and to be proud of where you came from,” Wes said, “those were the two big things he tried to instill in me.”
“The Choctaw Nation, was very good about making everyone feel proud to be a descendant of a Choctaw,” Wes said.
Wes said that he was “too young” to realize the weight or the gravity of being in his family’s homeland, but they were able to see the remains of Greenwood’s mansion, “Malmaison,” and went to several museums, and burial grounds.
“The thing that made the biggest impression,” Wes said, “was when I would talk to Choctaws in the museums and on the guided tours, it seemed like all of this history, well over a hundred years ago, they still talked about it like it was yesterday.”
“It was criminal what the Nation did,” Wes said, “forcing all of the Native American tribes to leave their lands so the colonizers could come in and take it.”
“The biggest impression that I took,” Wes said, “is that when history is full of atrocities against human beings, people don’t forget easily.
