After ceding nearly , the Choctaw emigrated in three stages : the first in the fall of 1831 , the second in 1832 and the last in 1833 . Nearly 15,000 Choctaws made the move to what would be called Indian Territory and then later Oklahoma . About 2,500 died along the Trail of Tears . The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 25 , 1831 , and the President was anxious to make it a model of removal . Principal Chief George W. Harkins wrote a farewell letter to the American people before the removals began . It was widely published Alexis de Tocqueville , noted French political thinker and historian , witnessed the Choctaw removals while in Memphis , Tennessee in 1831 : Approximately 4,000 – 6,000 Choctaw remained in Mississippi in 1831 after the initial removal efforts . The U.S. agent William Ward , who was responsible for Choctaw registration in Mississippi under article XIV , strongly opposed their treaty rights . Although estimates suggested 5000 Choctaw remained in Mississippi , only 143 family heads ( for a total of 276 adult persons ) received lands under the provisions of Article 14 . For the next ten years , the Choctaws in Mississippi were objects of increasing legal conflict , racism , harassment , and intimidation . The Choctaws described their situation in 1849 : " we have had our habitations torn down and burned , our fences destroyed , cattle turned into our fields and we ourselves have been scourged , manacled , fettered and otherwise personally abused , until by such treatment some of our best men have died . " Joseph B. Cobb , who moved to Mississippi from Georgia , described the Choctaw as having " no nobility or virtue at all , and in some respect he found blacks , especially native Africans , more interesting and admirable , the red man 's superior in every way . The Choctaw and Chickasaw , the tribes he knew best , were beneath contempt , that is , even worse than black slaves . " Removal continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries . In 1846 1,000 Choctaw removed , and in 1903 , another 300 Mississippi Choctaw were persuaded to move to the Nation in Oklahoma . By 1930 only 1,665 were estimated to have remained in Mississippi
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Choctaw