Some Elected to Leave. More Chose to Remain

During the process of the official adoption of Freedmen into the Choctaw Nation, an option was presented to some Freedmen to leave the nation. The incentive was to pay $100 per person who chose to relinquish rights to citizenship, and to agree to be relocated. Much discussion had occurred about removing the Freedmen to an area of Indian Territory known as "The Leased District".  However, there was also the decision to compile a list of those choosing to remain and the said promise that they were to receive $100 per anum, The larger number of Freedmen chose to remain in the land that they knew as their home.

Many did elect to leave but as time would have it, the funds were not distributed and as a result they remained in the Territory. The act of adoption of Choctaw Freedmen into the nation made the news in many places, and the press in neighboring states told some of the story. The following article from "The Leavenworth Tims, November 1885" was one such story that described the story of Freedmen adoption and the enticement for them to leave the place they called home.

Years later a list of those eligible to receive land allotments was constructed and became part of the numerous Dawes records. Today, they used widely today to determine eligibility for citizenship and also to exclude Freedmen descendants from citizenship among three of the former slave holding tribes. The presence however of the Freedmen, and their elders, who once lived enslaved in the Choctaw Nation, cannot be disputed, and the descending population is encouraged to study these records to glean more of the narrative of not only the family, but also of the community.