At a very early date, it must have been apparent to the Chickasaws that their only hope of survival in the face of a steadily encroaching white man's world would be to imitate and emulate the latter's society, his Constitution, and his laws. Long before Andrew Jackson signed the Removal Act destined to uproot large numbers of peoples and result in some of the greatest mass migrations in the history of the United States, the Chickasaws, largely by a process of trial and error, attempted to sow the seeds for their plan of survival in keeping with their realization of this all-important fact. After arriving in the new land soon to be known as Indian Territory, they continued this process in the hope that their identity as a tribe and a Nation might never be lost. The Chickasaw experience in Indian Territory became indicative of a culture confronted with possible extermination by a larger and more powerful culture. Their story illustrates an intense struggle on the part of the Chickasaws to utilize and regulate the land on a tribal basis of ownership in the face of a fast encircling world which favored the concept of individual private property. One of …

This paper discusses the influence of religious aspects in rural thought and how they played in the activities of agrarian movements and farm protest movements. The religious orientations of major agrarian reformers in Texas is discussed, as well as the similarities between Protestant religious institutions and agrarian institutions, specifically the Farmers' Alliance and People's Party of Texas.