| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Greg O'Brien. Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750–1830. (Indians of the Southeast.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2002. Pp. xxvii, 158. $45.00.
The main concern of this nuanced ethnohistorical study is the evolution of elite power among the Choctaw from the close of the Seven Years' War to 1801. Greg O'Brien carefully contextualizes the internal dynamics of kinship and spiritual authority with the external forces of European settler encroachment and trade to analyze how the Choctaw accommodated, yet maintained, their traditional culture in an era of revolutionary change. O'Brien's focus is the political career of two long-time leaders—Taboca and Franchimastabé—who guided the Choctaw in relations with their Native neighbors, particularly the Creek and Chickasaw, as well as with the European/Euramerican powers: France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States.	1
The authority possessed by Choctaw leaders arose not only from kin connections but also from one's proven ability as a hunter, warrior, and diplomat. Taboca primarily drew on these traditional sources of authority, but his younger contemporary, Franchimastabé, positioned himself more in the new capitalistic system of goods and trade and placed self-aggrandizement over community interests. Yet, as O'Brien shows, even in the pre-European contact era, controlling access to imported trade goods buttressed chiefly authority, so that the changes taking place in the late eighteenth century may have been more of degree than innovation.	. . .

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