Not all of the similarities I am citing can be said to specifically apply to the Choctaw, but enough of them do, so I feel confident in the premise of my story.
Defeat by Superior Weaponry:
The Irish lost many battles when overcome by Norman knights in armor, or later by the strength and size of the Tudor navy, and later still when Cromwell's Parliamentarian siege guns crumbled the walls of Drogheda. In the 1640's, the Irish held a slight, but short lived advantage by the length of their pikes. Veteran Roundhead soldiers were known to shorten their pike poles to make them lighter to carry during invasions. They paid the price of the shorter poles in close combat.
Firearms, artillery and mounted cavalry, gave white invaders a definite advantage over native bows arrows and blow guns. But something else brought by the invaders had a more devastating impact on native populations..
Disease:
European invaders of Ireland brought with them diseases not experienced on the island. The famines resulting from war exposed both military and civilian populations to influenza and dysentery. The same was true for the native people of our hemisphere. Entire populations have disappeared from diseases like measels brought by Europeans who were immuned. And sadly, there is evidence that disease was also used as weaponry. Controversial accounts of biological warfare through the distribution of typhoid infected blankets sent as 'gifts' to native villages. And even more diabolical, slaves, sick with typhoid or typhus were 'set free' to go and mix with native populations.
Man's inhumanity to man continues.
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