Greenwood LeFlore

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Greenwood LeFlore was an American Indian of the Choctaw tribe. A wealthy and regionally influential trader with many connections in state and federal government, he was elected chief of the entire Choctaw tribe shortly before the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, becoming the first Principal Chief of a Choctaw Nation that had previously been governed by regional chiefs. In treaty negotiations, LeFlore used his formidable personal political capital and position as head of a unified tribe not to oppose removal (which he regarded as inevitable), but to secure the largest and most desirable section of Indian Territory land possible.

In the event, the Choctaw were awarded the largest territory of any removed tribe, located in the fertile, forested southeast corner of what is now Oklahoma. LeFlore received one thousand acres (4 km²) of land in Mississippi for his part in the negotiations on the treaty, and he did not move to Indian terrirtory with other Choctaws. LeFlore's accomplishments in unifying and strengthening the Choctaw people are still honored, but his pragmatic, bottom-line response to their removal from their ancestral lands was and remains controversial. Some of the Choctaws felt LeFlore did them wrong because he was one of the leading chiefs involved in the treaty.

In later years, LeFlore was a Mississippi representative and senator, a fixture of Mississippi high society, and a personal friend of Jefferson Davis. Greenwood and Leflore County in Mississippi and Le Flore County, Oklahoma are named after him.

LeFlore was a son of Louis LeFleur, a French trader and explorer from French Canada.

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