Yowani Choctaws

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The Yowani were a historical group of Choctaw people who lived in Texas.^[1] Yowani was also the name of a preremoval Choctaw village.^[2]

When this area became part of the United States under the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, many of the resident Indian tribes wanted to emigrate to less hostile environs. Spain agreed to allow the Yowani and the Alabama-Coushatta to move to Spanish Texas. In 1824, after Mexico gained independence, a second group of Yowani received permission to establish villages in Texas.^[3] The Yowani gradually abandoned their original Mississippi homelands. By 1850 most Yowani had moved west and lived within the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory near present-day Ardmore and Marlow, Oklahoma, and in Rusk and Smith counties in east Texas, as a part of the Mount Tabor Indian Community.^{[4][better source needed]}

During the Texas Revolution in 1836, the Yowani were a party to a peace treaty with the new provisional government of Texas.^[5] Following Texas's independence and the creation of the Republic of Texas, relations between Indian tribes and English-speaking settlers deteriorated. Under President Mirabeau B. Lamar, the Texas Army drove most of the Cherokee out of Texas.^[6] A vigilante group attacked the Choctaw instead. The survivors split up, with most leaving Texas.^[7]

Between 1840 and 1843, elements of the Mexican militia, led by Vicente Cordova, fought a guerrilla war against the Anglo settlers,^[8] using warriors from remnant groups of displaced tribes, primarily Cherokee but including some Yowani Choctaw. General Adrian Woll led the Mexican occupation of San Antonio in September 1842.^[9] Both Indian and Mexican regulars were involved in the defeat of the Dawson Expedition^[10] and the Battle of Salado Creek.^[11] The Mexican troops soon departed from Texas.

For the remnant tribes, peace came when Sam Houston was elected as President of Texas the next year. He approved the Treaty of Birds Fort, which brought an end to hostilities, especially for the Cherokee residing at Monclova, Mexico under Chicken Trotter.^[12][13] Following the end of the Texas-Indian Wars, some of the Yowani returned to East Texas, where they settled with members of Chicken Trotter's Texas Cherokee, along with Old Settler and Ridge Party Cherokee, and McIntosh Party Creek. These three groups combined to form the Mount Tabor Indian Community.^[14]

Most of the men served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. In the early 20th century, several members of the Yowani Choctaw, led by William Clyde Thompson of Texas,^[15] relocated to the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory. They wanted to be included in registration for the Dawes Commission Final Rolls as citizens by blood of the Choctaw Nation and recognized by the federal government. This would enable them to be eligible for allotments of land, as the United States had decided to allocate the tribal communal land to individual households to encourage their adoption of subsistence farming.^[16] A long political struggle ensued between 1898 and 1909, as the Choctaw leaders of Indian Territory did not want the long-absent Yowani to receive any of their land.

In 1905 the Bureau of Indian Affairs struck all the registered Texas Yowani from the Final Rolls of the Choctaw Nation.^{[17][better source needed]} Thompson pursued a legal challenge, appealing the government's action ultimately to the United States Supreme Court.^[18] It ruled in favor of the Yowani,^[19] and these families were included on a 1909 Choctaw reinstatement list, giving them citizenship in the Choctaw Nation and the right to any associated benefits.^{[20][better source needed]}