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Resistance Through Existence: The Choctaw Gift To The Starving Irish In 1847 As An Act Of Agency Assertion And Cultural Preservation, Sophia Gaffney
Resistance Through Existence: The Choctaw Gift To The Starving Irish In 1847 As An Act Of Agency Assertion And Cultural Preservation, Sophia Gaffney
Library Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research
In 1847, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma donated $173 dollars to an Irish Potato Famine relief fund during the potato blight, which, intersecting with an era of British oppression, resulted in about 1 million Irish dying of starvation and other hunger-related diseases. Only 15 years before, the Choctaw had been forced to relocate 500 miles, by foot, along the Trail of Tears, starting in their ancestral homeland in Mississippi and ending in what is now called Oklahoma. It is estimated that they lost about ⅓ of their population along this journey. In this thesis, I explore why a nation not …