Native American

Virtually all that is known about the North American indigenous peoples before European contact comes from the discipline of archaeology. Archaeology is that branch of anthropology that investigates people's past by studying their material remains. Lacking written records, archaeologists could not give most of the prehistoric groups specific names. Therefore, archaeologists created names such as Paleo-Indian, Middle Woodland, Mississippian, Marksville, and Plaquemine to identify distinctive pre-contact Native American groups by culture and time of existence.

One of Mississippi's and the United States' most inhumane actions was the forced removal of American Indians from the South to lands west of the Mississippi River in the early 1800s.

Removal occurred because of an incessant demand for Indian lands. Demands for Indian land resulted from Anglo-American population growth in the South, the expansion of the short-staple cotton industry after Eli Whitney's cotton gin became widely available in the 1790s, the discovery of gold and other minerals on some Indian land, and simple racism.

Mississippi Choctaws have a strong tradition of doing business. As early as 1700, the tribe had developed a strong economy based on farming and selling goods and livestock to the Europeans who were beginning to venture into Choctaw territory. Trade between the Choctaws and other Southeastern tribes had long been established. Throughout the 18th century, the Choctaws were a prosperous people with large land holdings. Their lands spread over what is now central Mississippi.

While other American Indian women such as Pocahontas and Sacajawea have been afforded mythic stature in the annals of American history because they were seen as the benefactors of men, Chickasaw Indian Betsy Love remains largely unknown, even in the state of Mississippi.