Native American ǀ American Indian
Photo: Powtawche Valerino, enrolled member of the Choctaw tribe and raised on the Mississippi Choctaw Reservation, now an engineer working for NASA.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is one of four federally recognized tribes of Choctaw Native Americans. On April 20, 1945, this band organized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Also in 1945 the Choctaw Indian Reservation was created from lands in Neshoba, Leake, Newton, Scott, Jones, Attala, Kemper, and Winston counties in Mississippi. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is the only federally recognized Native American tribe in the state. The current Miko or tribal chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is Phyliss J. Anderson. She was elected in September 2011 and is the first woman to serve as chief of the tribe.
The Choctaw regularly traveled hundreds of miles from their homes for long periods of time, moving to seasonal hunting grounds in the winter. They set out early in the fall and returned to their reserved lands at the opening of spring to plant their gardens.
Mississippi -Choctaw Indians population data are based on blood samples obtained from 7 unrelated individuals living in the Southeastern United States in 2016.
Source publication: Native American Population Data based on the Globalfiler autosomal STR PCR Amplification Kit, Forensic Science International, 2016, 12-13.
[Population 471]
