Denied: MOWA Band of Choctaw, Alabama (Mt. Vernon, AL; Final Determination, Dec. 1997)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1997 · Places: Gulf Coast
SUMMARY20. Denied: MOWA Band of Choctaw, Alabama (Mt. Vernon, AL; Final Determination, Dec. 1997) [Connections: Who decided who's Indian, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDThe BIA declined to acknowledge the Mobile-Washington County Band of Choctaw Indians of South Alabama, finding it failed criterion (e) (descent from a historical tribe), so the other criteria were not evaluated. The notice says members descend from two core families in southwest Alabama by about 1830, and that "only one percent" could document American Indian ancestry. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Alabama recognized the MOWA in 1979; state senator L. W. McRae suggested calling them "Cajuns," which "helped the lumber companies acquire their land"; Southern race laws were written "for either whites or blacks," so Indian identity "was generally overlooked"; a three-school system (white, Black, Indian) lasted into the 1960s; critics say the BIA "refuses to credit oral history."
PATTERNA community the state recognizes, that ran its own Indian schools, and that a state senator renamed "Cajuns," failed the federal test on documents
LENS (WW9)The state called them Choctaw, a politician called them "Cajuns," and the federal paper said they were not Indian at all
DISPUTEDThe BIA finding (descent not shown) versus MOWA's position and its critics
OPENThe Final Determination's detailed genealogy (bia.gov petition 086) and how the core ancestors were labeled in 1830–1880 censuses
SOURCEFederal Register, 24 Dec. 1997, 97-33532; Encyclopedia of Alabama, MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians.