The Choctaws Sent Famine Aid To The Irish in 1847






This is a story I'd never heard before. In 1847 a group of Choctaw Indians collected $170 and forwarded it to a U.S. organization that was collecting funds for Irish potato famine relief.

Only 16 years before, President Andrew Jackson, the son of Irish immigrants, seized the lands of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw and forced them on a 500-mile trek to Oklahoma known as the Trail of Tears. Of the 21,000 Choctaws who started the journey, more than half perished from exposure, malnutrition, and disease.

Both the Choctaw and the Irish were victims of conquest that led to loss of property, forced migration and exile, mass starvation, and cultural suppression (most notably language).

A plaque on Dublin’s Mansion House which honors the Choctaw contribution 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.



More at this Link

Comments

  1. Some Native American casinos won't accept twenty dollar bills because Jackson's face is on them.

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