Intra-tribal Conflict
Colbert did not want conflict; he wanted peace with the US government, even if it meant giving up his people's land. He wanted to try to preserve his people's rights during negotiations, as they were pressured by increasing conflict with encroaching European-American settlers and governments. He was very concerned that the federal government was treating equally with mixed-race men he called "half-breeds." Although Colbert was of mixed descent, he had grown up identifying with the Chickasaw culture and his mother's clan.
He believed some white men were marrying into the tribe just to try to get control of land. By the 1830s, he felt such men were ignoring traditional practices and the tribe's recognized chiefs in seeking personal gain.
Read more about this topic: Levi Colbert
Famous quotes containing the word conflict:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)