The first in a series of planned secondary curriculum materials about the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the book traces Choctaw tribal government from before seventeenth century contact with the French to the present day. Chapter I treats tribal government in the period before contact with the French, when Choctaw family structure and relationships were well defined. Chapter II discusses the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth century French alliance with the tribe. Chapter III details a series of United States-Choctaw treaties dating from 1786 and including the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek which resulted in the removal of many of the Choctaw to Oklahoma. Chapter IV described the tribe's "dark ages" between 1830 and the 1921 colonization operation of the Choctaw Agency. The chapter also describes the 1944 declaration of the Choctaw Reservation, the re-emergence of tribal government and its 1975 reorganization, and the new spirit of self-determination and economic development that exists today. The chapter contains biographies of five tribal leaders. Appendices contain the text of nine treaties and the revised tribal by-laws and constitution. The book, written by tribal members and scholars, is illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps. (SB)