William Clyde Thompson - Background

Background

William C. Thompson was born on February 6, 1839 at Fort Towson, Choctaw Nation. He was the son of William Thompson, who was one-fourth Choctaw and one-eighth Chickasaw, and Elizabeth Jones Mangum who was also one-eighth Choctaw, the great granddaughter of Nashoba. His family were part of the Yowani Choctaws, originally from the village of Yowani Indians east of the Chickasawhay River near present day Shubuta, Clarke County, Mississippi. Many of the Yowani's moved west into Louisiana and Texas, taking on the customs of their neighbors, to the point that many scholars have included the Yowani Choctaws as a part of the Caddo Confederacy, while others became part of the leadership of the Koasati or Coushatta a former part of the Creek Confederacy. It was this same Choctaw group that were listed as part of the Cherokees and Twelve Associated Tribes, in the Treaty of Bowles Village between the tribes and the Republic of Texas, concluded on February 23, 1836.

William was descended paternally from Atahobia (c.1750-c.1824)a full blood Choctaw who was at one time the husband of Sally McCoy a half blood Chickasaw and later wife of Chickasaw leader Major James Colbert (1768–1842). Atahobia was one, if not the primary leader of the Yowani's who moved into Texas following their petition of the Mexican government for permission to settle in the province in 1824. Prior to this, Atahobia was a signer of the Treaty of Doak's Stand in 1820, as one of the Chiefs and Headmen of the Choctaw.

In Texas the villages prior to 1837 were located east of the Trinity River in what was then Nacogdoches County, west of the U.S. (Louisiana) Border. After 1837 the villages were combined to form a single village on Attoyac Bayou in extreme southeastern Rusk County. By 1844, following the Treaty of Birds Fort, there were two villages, one near the Cherokees under the leadership of Chicken Trotter (Devireaux Jarrett Bell 1817-1866), in what would become the Mt. Tabor/Bellview Indian Communities in Rusk County and the second under the leadership of Woody Jones (grandson of Nashoba), located in Houston County near the border with Trinity County. The southern village dwindled to only a few individuals until 1881, when John Martin Thompson (Cherokee, grandson of Cherokee Nation Chief Justice, John Martin) opened mills in Trinity and Angelina counties near Woodlake and Diboll, thereby bringing a large number of Choctaws along with some Cherokees (Thompson's & Starr's) and Muscogee-Creeks (Berryhill's & Posey's) into the area.

William C. Thompson's family moved between the Choctaw Nation and the Texas Choctaw villages until 1840, when vigilantes seeking retribution against Indians (possibly Chicken Trotters Cherokees) who had killed three whitemen near Nacogdoches, fell upon the unsuspecting Choctaw village. From this attack, eleven Choctaw men, women and children were murdered. According to Dr. May and information from the Thompson-McCoy Choctaw Descendants Association, William's family was in the village at the time, forcing them to flee back to the Choctaw Nation. William's mother and infant sister died there on August 30, 1840, followed two days later by his father. Family speculation has led some to tie these deaths to the attack by Texians against the Choctaws, but no collaborating evidence has yet to be found.

The death of his parents led William and his brother Arthur James Thompson (1837–1884) to be sent west to live with their paternal grandmother Margaret (McCoy) Thompson (c.1774-c.1868), residing at a community known then as Virginia Hill near Fort Washita in the Chickasaw Nation. It was there they remained until their maternal grandfather William Mangum arrived and took them back to Mississippi where they would stay until the American Civil War. It should be noted that Margarets brother was Judge James A. McCoy, Supreme Judge of the Chickasaw Nation, thus Margaret's reason for living near Fort Washita. His daughter Lucy (1855–1891)later married Chickasaw Governor Robert Maxwell Harris (1850–1927).