The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians has more than 3,600 tribal members living in Mobile and Washington Counties, Alabama, where its tribal reservation encompasses 300 acres and hosts several public pow-wows each year. Governed by a Chief and an eleven-member Tribal Council, the tribe provides numerous services for its members and emphasizes cultural values such as honesty, spirituality, kindness, sharing, patience, effort, generosity, love, respect, balance, truth, and peace. According to tribal legend, the Great Spirit created the Choctaw people on Nana Chafa, and the Yowanni Choctaws lived in this area for many centuries, defending their homeland and way of life against Spanish, French, and British colonists. After conflicts over land intensified with the arrival of thousands of American settlers in the early 19th century, the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek forced the Choctaws to cede almost all lands east of the Mississippi River to the United States. Some Choctaws who did not wish to leave Alabama moved into remote communities in north Mobile and south Washington Counties, from which the name MOWA derives, and after the forced removal of most Indian peoples from their eastern homelands they became increasingly isolated from relatives in Oklahoma and Mississippi. Between 1830 and 1890, their ancestors lived close-knit lives with little outside intrusion, later allowing Christian missionaries into their communities to improve social and economic conditions and creating tri-racial schools operated autonomously with missionary instruction. From 1888 to 1910, a second Indian removal tied to the 1887 Dawes Act profoundly affected the Choctaws as many eastern Choctaws relocated to Oklahoma, though some later returned to Alabama and Mississippi. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Alabama Choctaws lost most of their land to unscrupulous white businessmen, logging became the main occupation for many, poverty marked the small communities in north Mobile and south Washington Counties, and educational opportunities remained very limited from the 1930s to the 1950s, although some became among the first college graduates, returned as teachers, and helped educate their people. Civil rights laws in the 1960s marked a turning point as barriers based on color diminished and expressions of Indian identity intensified, and today the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians identifies itself as the proud descendant of people who resisted oppression, remained on their land, and draw strength from their ancestors to face the future with confidence and determination.