LeFlore, Greenwood

Back to the Indian Removal through Arkansas homepage

Back to the People homepage

Greenwood Leflore (1800-1865), one of the district chiefs of the Choctaw Nation, had promoted assimilation and, after the State of Mississippi extended its authority over the Choctaw Nation, promoted removal. He was influential in negotiation of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, whereby the Choctaws agreed to give up their land in Mississippi and remove west of the Mississippi River. During removal, he served as a conductor for parties of Choctaws moving to the West, but he lost his influence with the Choctaws because of his pro-removal stand. Thus he chose to take remain in Mississippi on the land allotment he received under the treaty. He became a planter and entrepreneur and served in the Mississippi State Senate from 1841 to 1844.

Source: Dumas Malone, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), 11: 143-144.