Rebecca LeFlore

Greenwood Leflore was the last Great Chief of the Choctaw Indians East of the Mississippi River. His father was a trader, Louis LeFleur, and his mother, Rebecca Cravat, was a mixed blood Choctaw. He emerged as Chief of the Western District in 1826, and, through his growing influence, he was elected head Chief in 1830. He was an advocate of removal.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47273738/rebecca-lefleur

Mother of Greenwood Leflore. Rebecca was the granddaughter of Pushmataha (her mother was Pushmataha's daughter).

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cravat-1

Daughter of John Jean Cravat and Na Hom Tima (Choctaw) Cravat

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_LeFlore

LeFlore was the first son of Rebecca Cravatt, a high-ranking Choctaw daughter of the chief Pushmataha, and Louis LeFleur, a French fur trader and explorer from French Canada who worked for Panton, Leslie & Company, based in Spanish Florida.[1] [2] Because the Choctaw had a matrilineal system for property and hereditary leadership, LeFlore gained elite status from his mother's family and clan. By the 1820s, as the historian Greg O'Brien notes, the Choctaw called such mixed-race children itibapishi toba (to become a brother or sister), which emphasized the connection to Choctaw, or issish iklanna (half-blood), which seemed to imitate Euro-American concepts. O'Brien notes the importance of their being first of all, part of the Choctaw elites. Choctaw chiefs recognized the advantage of using such mixed-race elite men as "trailblazers into an unprecedented universe of capitalist accumulation and renewable wealth."[3]

Some, like LeFlore, gained a Euro-American education that enabled them to negotiate the changing world developing in the American South. When LeFlore was twelve, his father sent him to Nashville to be educated by Americans.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushmataha

Many historians use a quote attributed to Gideon Lincecum, who said that Pushmataha was an orphan with no family; but, both George Strother Gaines and Henry Sales Halbert mention his family. In Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol 6, Halbert mentions a sister named 'Nahomtima', the mother of Tappenahoma and Oka Lah Homma (from his notes). Gaines mentions the nephew who succeeded Pushmataha, but does not give a name.[20]

20. Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society By Mississippi Historical Society. Page 417. < GoogleBooks > Near the eastern border of the town, at the terminus of a knoll extending out from the creek, can be seen the graves of the Coosha people. This cemetery, now in a farm, is the last abiding memorial of Coosha Town. Nahotima, the sister of Pushmataha, and Tapena Homa, here sleep their last sleep. Tradition says that Oklahoma also lies buried in this cemetery. But his nephew, Jack Amos, of Newton county, disputes this and says that Oklahoma was buried on his farm on the south side of the creek, about a mile distant from the town. The Coosha cemetery comprises about half an acre and is now covered with a growth of young sweet gum trees. It has always been carefully preserved by th different owners of the farm.

Sam Gentry's Family Letter

< AncestryTree >

the great Indian lawyer, Campbell LeFlore

the family debated whether to accept LeFlore's urging to come to Oklahoma and take up their Indian headright. LeFlore was secretary of the Choctaw Nation and represented the Nation before the U.S, Supreme Court for many years, maintaining a home in Washington.

I have been fascinated to find that Louis and Michael LeFlore settled in Mississippi, reaching, that country, in 1792. They were Canadians, but were always called the Frenchmen. Louis established LeFleur's Bluff as his first trading, post on the Pearl River. It is called Jackson today. When that area was changing from Choctaw to white, he moved up the river and established French Camp, as it is called today. Michael opened another trading post one day's down the Natchez Trace. Louis married Rebecca Cravat, daughter of a Frenchman and the sister of Pushmataha, the greatest of the Choctaw Mingos. Their son, Greenwood LeFlore (for whom Greenwood, in the County of LeFlore is named), succeeded his, great- uncle as chief of the Six-Town Choctaws in the middle 1820s. Michael's record isn't as clear as Louis', but family reports indicated he also married a member of Pushmataha's family, apparently his daughter.

Significant, I believe, is that the family pronunciation has always been as the French give it: Lewey, not Lewis.

from Angelyn C's post

< AncestryTree >

Louis and Michael LeFlau (LeFlore) were NOT Canadians. Both were born in Mobile, AL, then a small French colony; Louis was born 29 June , 1762 and Michael, 30 October 1767. At the time of Michael's birth, Mobile had become a British colony.Louis LeFlore was also married to Rebecca Cravat's sister, Nancy, and had a 3rd wife as well, Hoke Hoke (has several spellings). Some genealogists say that the Cravat sisters mother, Nahotima (Nehotima, Na Hom Tima) was not the sister of Pushmataha.

from Joe Hock COMPLETE post

< AncestryTree >

Facts on Louis Leflore.

Born 29 June 1762 in what is today, Mobile, Alabama the son of a French soldier Jean Baptise Leflau and Marie Jeanne Girard. Jean Baptise Leflau arrived at Mobile before 9 January 1735 because on that day he served as Godparent for the son of Jacques Claude Dupont and Marie Foucalt "of Paris." On 19 June 1735, Jean Baptise Leflau married Jeanne Boissinot, a native of Mobile. The church records further record that he was the son of Jacques Leflau and Magdeliene Vichet of Versailles, Ste. Croisse parish who was a foot soldier in the company of Sieur de Bombelle.

Louis, however, came into the world as a result of a second marriage to Marie
Jeanne Girard, the daughter of Jean Girard and Marie Anne Daniau who had been married in Mobile in 1732. The last child of this couple would be Michael
Leflore, who received baptism on 29 November 1767. Michael Leflore received two sections of land in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. That land encompassed the site of the village of Bowlingreen in Holmes County. Operating out of Natchez, Louis began trading with the Choctaw Nation around 1780.

About 1790 married Nancy and Rebecca Cravat, the nieces of Chief Pushmataha of the Choctaw nation. They were the daughters of John Cravat and the Nahomtima. Nahomtima was the older sister of Pushmataha.

Louis Leflore moved up the Pearl River, establishing a trading post at LeFleurs Bluff, the future site of Jackson, Mississippi. Greenwood Leflore born here on 2 June 1800.

Louis Leflore and Louis Durant introduced cattle raising in present day Attala
and Holmes Counties by 1810.

Established French Camp on the Natchez Trace and later ca 1820 the town of
Rankin on Black Creek in Holmes County.

His son Greenwood Leflore became one of the chiefs of the Choctaw Nation [NW District].

Son-in-law Samuel Long donated land for the site of Lexington, county seat of
Holmes County. Also a founder of the first church in the town. [Presbyterian]
Major in the Russel Expedition to Alabama in February  May 1814 also with
Choctaw forces under Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans in 1814.

Louis was a confidant and close personal friend to Andrew Jackson.

Louis was NOT a French Canadian as widely reported. He was born in Mobile and entered into the Mississippi Territory from Mobile.

References

1. Will & facts on Louis Leflore Posted Jul 8, 2012 by David Parker. < AncestryImage >. (document attached). # Will & facts on Louis Leflore Posted Jul 8, 2012 by David Parker. < AncestryImage >. (document attached). “… my said eleven children Viz. Greenwood Leflore, Benjamin Leflore, William Leflore, Basil Leflore, Jackson Leflore, Lousia Haskins, Felicity Long wife of Samuel Long, William McGaley ; Silva Harris, Clarissa Wilson, Isabel Brashers, wife of Vaughn Brashers …”