We are pleased to announce that Dr. Fay Yarbrough is the winner of the 2022 A. M. Pate, Jr. Award in Civil War history for her book “Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country.” The Pate Award is given annually for the best book providing original research on the Trans-Mississippi sector of the Civil War. The Pate Award program was started in 2003. Dr. Yarbrough is our 19th honoree.
When the Choctaw Nation was forcibly resettled in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma in the 1830s, it was joined by enslaved Black people–the tribe had owned enslaved Blacks since the 1720s. By the eve of the Civil War, 14 percent of the Choctaw Nation consisted of enslaved Blacks. From the beginning of the Civil War, the Choctaws were courted by the government of the CSA. A major concern was slavery, but there were also issues with the Union breaking treaties and reneging on commitments of economic support. As a result the Choctaw nation became avid supporters of the Confederate States of America. In fact, the Nation passed a measure requiring all whites living in its territory to swear allegiance to the Confederacy and deemed any criticism of it or its army treasonous and punishable by death. Choctaws also raised an infantry force and a cavalry to fight alongside Confederate forces. Choctaw men looked at military service as a means of re-establishing their warrior role in their society.
Choctaw Confederates is a carefully researched analysis of the Choctaw nation before, during and after the War. This research was based on the service records of approximately 3,000 members of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles as well as other original sources. The result is a perceptive and revealing story.
As Andrew Wagenhofer of Civil War Books and Authors says:
“Fay Yarbrough’s Choctaw Confederates is an award-worthy feat of research and writing. Its wide-ranging treatment of the Choctaw offers much needed expansion to a literature of Civil War-era Indian Territory.”
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