Customer Reviews

Chief: The Autobiography of Chief Phillip Martin, Longtime Tribal Leader, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

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In the autobiography, Chief Martin not only tells his own life story from birth on the reservation in Neshoba County, Mississippi but the story of the Choctaw people from the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit to the conditions that they had to live ubder in most of the 20th century. When he became the Chief of the Mississippi Choctaws, the tribe lived in very poor conditions with poor health care and
lack of acceptable schools. Chief Martin used his experience from the U.S. Army
and his schooling to help make the Choctaw tribe one of the assets of East Mississippi and the native Indian World. Martin helped to get for the tribe good schools and many business enterprises. He knew how to be a good leader and to work for his people. Under his leadership, the Choctaw tribe could easily be called a Fortune 500 Company.

Chief Martin's story is a compelling history of an impoverished, neglected and despised people who have made such remarkable progress as to be practically incomprehensible.

As a Mississippian and Methodist pastor to the Mississippi Choctaws, I daily observe the indelible imprint of the progress of this remarkable tribe - from abject poverty toward self-sufficiency. Education, economics and cultural reawakening are the hallmarks of the half-century of the leadership of Phillip Martin.

Chief Martin's book serves as an unofficial history of the most unusual and progressive movemnent in the sad history of Mississippi and Indian Territory. It is a must read for all who are seeking understanding of some of the First Americans and their uncanny ability to survive against all odds.

Rev. Jon Walters, Mississippi United Methodist Choctaw Mission, Choctaw, Mississippi