Alabama tribe struggles for federal recognition

Garry Mitchell

Monday, Dec. 9, 2002 | 10:49 a.m.

MOBILE, Ala. -- Chief Wilford "Longhair" Taylor promises to fight until death for federal recognition of the MOWA Choctaw tribe in southwest Alabama, a struggle supported by Indian experts but not some Creek and Choctaw tribes in the South.

"It boils down to politics and money," Taylor said.

The MOWAs, who take their name from the first two letters of Mobile and Washington counties where thousands of them live, were last denied federal recognition four years ago. The Bureau of Indian Affairs said the MOWAs lacked documentation, but others disagree.

"Their credentials are solid and the historical data that identifies them as Indians extends back to the days when they were integral villages in the Choctaw Nation," said University of Colorado professor emeritus Vine Deloria Jr., a Standing Rock Sioux and a major voice in Indian affairs.

"They definitely are an Indian group. Why they are not recognized now is a total travesty," said University of Arizona anthropologist Richard W. Stoffle, who in 1996 studied the tribe's community and has worked on various projects with 95 tribes over the last 30 years.

The MOWAs finally gained state recognition as a tribe in 1979 and opened a tribal office the next year in McIntosh. But the Poarch Creeks in nearby Atmore remain the only federally recognized tribe in Alabama.

Federal recognition improves a tribe's chances for federal assistance in health care, housing, education and business development. Taylor said he's not interested in opening a casino on tribal land, as Indian tribes elsewhere have done, but wants the federal government to restore the MOWAs' identity.

Some of the opposition to recognition for the MOWAs in the 1990s came from the Poarch Creeks and the Choctaws in Philadelphia, Miss., while the Tunica-Biloxi Indians of Louisiana have supported the effort.

Taylor believes the federally recognized tribes, including those with lucrative gambling operations, don't want any more tribes to gain government recognition. That's why he believes "politics and money" stand in the way of the MOWAs.

Taylor, 56, of McIntosh said he's already contacted newly elected U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, about helping revive the tribe's federal petition for recognition. But he doesn't know what kind of response he'll get from the Bush administration.

Another powerful weapon in the quest for recognition is a book, "They Say the Wind is Red," by retired teacher and historian Jacqueline Anderson Matte of Mountain Brook.

The book's 1999 printing of 1,500 copies sold out, and she's back with an updated version by Montgomery-based NewSouth Books. In the book's foreword, Deloria urged readers to push Congress to "get this recognition problem solved once and for all" for the MOWAs.

Matte recently joined Taylor for a book-signing at the University of South Alabama, accompanied by Gregory A. Waselkov, an anthropologist who also has studied the MOWAs.

Waselkov's research shows that the Choctaws camped outside Mobile before the Civil War and some were recruited as scouts for the Confederates.

Matte's book, which includes Census records from the 1800s, summarizes the tribe's ancestral history and explains how racially discriminatory policies contributed to the lack of records.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs says the MOWAs lack documentation for their claim because most of the records did not document them as Indian, but described them racially or ethnically with ambiguous terms, according to Matte's book.