Levi Colbert

Levi Colbert (1759–1834), also known as Itawamba in Chickasaw, was a leader and chief of the Chickasaw in the American Southeast. Colbert was called Itte-wamba Mingo, meaning bench chief. He and his brother George Colbert were prominent interpreters and negotiators with President Andrew Jackson's appointed negotiators related to Indian Removal; the United States wanted the people to cede its traditional lands and move west of the Mississippi River to extinguish its claims in the Southeast. The US Government Indian Agent with whom Chief Levi Colbert (Itawamba) had the most dealings was John Dabney Terrell, Sr. of Marion County, Alabama.

Early life and education

One of six sons of James Logan Colbert (1721 - 1784), a North Carolinian settler of Scots descent, and his second wife Sopha Minta Hoye, a Chickasaw, Levi Colbert was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He and his mixed-race siblings grew up bilingual and were educated in both Chickasaw and European-American traditions. According to the entry in the Chickasaw Hall of Fame, he was born in the Chickasaw Nation, in what is now Alabama, in 1759. He and his siblings grew up bilingual, educated in both Chickasaw and European-American traditions. When Levi Colbert assumed the title of head chief of the Chickasaw Nation, he was living at that time on the bluff west of the Chickasaw Indian trading post known as Cotton Gin Port, established near the old cotton gin and where there was a large spreading oak known as the council tree.