Choctaw Nation Chief Gregory E. Pyle took part in the annual ‘Famine Walk’ between Louisburgh and Doolough in County Mayo Ireland in 1997. The walk, which takes place each year, commemorates the journey made by an estimated 600 men, women and children who were seeking assistance during the Irish famine of 1849. They failed to get assistance and many died on of starvation on the return journey.
Like many other parts of Ireland the famine had a devastating effect on the Louisburgh area. Word about the famine in Ireland quickly spread abroad. Collections were held and relief committees established to help the people affected by the famine. Millions in cash and goods were sent to Ireland in the following years. Despite having only meagre resources themselves the Choctaw people held a collection and sent $170 to a U.S. famine relief organisation in Ireland. They did this even though they themselves had a terrible history of deprivation.
The Choctaw Nation had supported Andrew Jackson in the war against the British in 1812. However on September 27th 1830 the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed. Under the treaty the Choctaw Nation signed away their traditional homelands in Mississippi to the US Government. By the time the treaty was signed Andrew Jackson, who was the son of Irish immigrants, was President of the United States. He forced the Choctaw off their lands and sent them to a reservation in Oklahoma. The 500 mile trek became known as the ‘Trail of Tears’. More than half of the estimated 21,000 people, who started out, lost their lives on the journey.
The donation by the Choctaw is remembered in Ireland through a plaque on the Mansion House in Dublin. The plaque reads: “Their humanity calls us to remember the millions of human beings throughout our world today who die of hunger and hunger-related illness in a world of plenty.”
The Choctaw Nation at a meeting in Scullyville, Oklahoma gave a donation of $170 ($4,100 today’s value) to the Irish Nation for famine relief, in the year 1847 On This Day.
Doolough by National Library of Ireland on The Commons
Doolough Famine Tragedy memorial, Co. Mayo 1994 by sludgegulper
There’s a sculpture of Indian feathers in Middleton, Co. Cork dedicated to the Choctaw Indians for their contribution to the Irish Nation du ting the famine. Don’t know the sculpture’s name but I believe he’s from Hungary. Think I’ll pay a visit to it this year.
Did not know that sculpture existed. Would like to pay a visit there also sometime.