The territory of the Chickasaw Nation once included north Mississippi, west Tennessee, northwest Alabama, and western Kentucky. Until removal from Mississippi, the Chickasaw people defended their homeland from native invaders and Europeans, including the French in 1736. In a series of treaties (1805, 1816, 1818, and 1832), the Chickasaw people were forced to relinquish their homeland under pressure from the U.S. government and relocated to Indian territory in present-day Oklahoma beginning in 1837.