Green McCurtain

Greenwood "Green" McCurtain (1848–1910) was Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation (1896-1890) and (1902-1910), serving four two-year terms. He was the third of his brothers to be elected as chief, and after 1906 and the dissolution of tribal governments under the Dawes Act, he was appointed as chief by the United States government. (His brothers Jackson Frazier McCurtain and Edmund McCurtain had previously been elected as chief, serving a total of three terms.)

Green McCurtain represented his tribe as a delegate at the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention, an effort by American Indian nations to create an Indian-controlled state in what is now Oklahoma.

Personal life

Green McCurtain was born on November 28, 1848 in Skullyville, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, the third son of Cornelius McCurtain, born in Alabama, and Mayhiya "Amy" Blevins, both full-blood Choctaw. Blevins' grandmother was Sho-Ma-Ka, a captive from a neighboring tribe who was adopted into the Choctaw.

McCurtain's family moved to Indian Territory in 1833 as part of the Choctaw Trail of Tears. Green's older brothers Jackson Frazier McCurtain (1880-1884) and Edmund McCurtain (1884-1886) were elected as principal chief before him. His family name is of Scots-Irish origin, but McCurtain was full-blood Choctaw.