The Great Irish Famine of 1846
Early in 1847 news spread like wildfire across the United States about the Great Irish Famine, and concern grew for the starving poor of Ireland, left by the British government to fend for themselves. Caused by the potato blight, the famine had reached catastrophic levels by 1846 for the Irish people. Many members of the British upper and middle classes believed that the famine was a divine judgment—an act of Providence to teach the Irish a lesson. Unfortunately, Charles Edward Trevelyan, the British government official who was chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years also held this belief.
In his book The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan described the famine as “a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence”, one which laid bare “the deep and inveterate root of social evil”, naming that evil as being Ireland’s exploitative landlords as well as the peasants’ over-dependence on the potato crop. The famine, he declared, was “the sharp but effectual remedy” by which Ireland would finally be humbled enough to fully submit to British rule.
An article in the 2023 issue of Smithsonian Magazine elaborates on the dismal living conditions of the Irish nation in the early 1800s as they struggled against the British government for the right of self-rule, another topic close to the heart of the Choctaw people.
“Many Irish were already living in harsh conditions before the famine. Seeing the extreme poverty in the west of Ireland in 1835, the French journalist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville described “a collection of misery such as I did not imagine existed in this world.”
~~”On Common Ground,” Smithsonian Magazine, Sep-Oct 2023, pages 58-65
By the time Armstrong addressed the Choctaw people it was clear the famine in Ireland had been catalyzed by the failure of the potato crop that poor rural people depended on. The deeper, underlying cause was that Ireland, colonized by England centuries before, had been forced into a land tenure system that enabled mainly English landlords to extract substantial profits from Irish tenant farmers while leaving many of them destitute.”
In a strange twist of fate, the Frenchman de Tocqueville had also witnessed the tragedy and sorrows relating from the 1830 Indian Removal Act. His memoirs written that brutal winter of 1831, recall a horrific sight. As he stood on the riverbank in Memphis, a large band of Choctaw boarded a river barge for the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, on their way to Indian Territory, and made the following observations:
“The cold was unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the river was drifting huge masses of ice,” de Tocqueville wrote. “The Indians had their families with them; and they brought in their train the wounded and the sick, with children newly born and old men upon the verge of death. They possessed neither tents nor wagons, but only their arms and some provisions. … Never will that solemn spectacle fade from my remembrance.”
Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America, 1835
While the British government remained immobile and uncaring in face of the disaster affecting all of Ireland, the American people from many walks of life rallied to send aid. The unbearable conditions endured by the Irish are still beyond our comprehension.
Here is part of an account from the Cherokee Advocate (Tahlequah, CN, Indian Territory), dated March 18, 1847:
“The Dreadful Condition of Ireland …may be the judged of by cases reported in a single Dublin paper, the Freeman’s Journal of the 16th ult.
- At Skibbereen a reporter staying half an hour in town counted two funeral processions. One family was found dying of disease and want, unable to go out for food or medicine.
- In another cabin, nine persons lay stretched on the ground, suffering from fever produced by want of food; here a woman had given birth to a child, lying upon some straw. Six persons lay around her, suffering from aggravated symptoms of fever brought on by starvation.
- In another cabin a whole family was ill with fever, having lost two of its number within two days, and the unfeeling landlord had unhinged the door, took off their blankets, and left them to die without shelter, clothing or food.
- In thirty-two houses at least two of each family were ill with fever or dropsy; in some cases, nine in family were down, unable to move, and apparently anxious for death to relieve them from their sufferings.
- A man, his wife and children were confined with the fever, and among the dying children was found the decaying corpse of a little boy who had died some time previously. In this case a piece of coarse packing stuff was the only covering over the living and the winding sheet of the dead.
- In another house a poor woman having lost two of her children by fever, was found lying at the side of her third and last child. She tried to go to the town for relief for her dying infant, and while doing so, dropped down in the street, was carried home and died in twenty-four hours.
- John Maloney and Michael Donovan, of the town of Beenean, were found in their hovel, having been dead some time. They died of famine. There was nothing in the house to keep the vermin off the bodies.
- Four corpses lay in that town as they had died, without preparation of any kind. Another case is reported, of a boy who lay six days and nights beside a dead body, without being able to procure assistance for its removal, and when the last farthing candle went out, the rats commenced to eat the decomposing body.
- The employment furnished by government scarcely saves the laborers from famine. By day the hungry wretches steal turnips from the fields and gnaw them in their flight. At night fall they prowl through the pasture lands and slaughter sheep and oxen to stay their hunger. A private letter gives an account of the flight to England of an Irish landlord with all his moveable property.
These are only a few of the thousand cases reported in the Irish papers. We could fill our columns for days with these details from various parts of Ireland and the highlands of Scotland. — Cin. Times.”
In March of 1847 two unusual meetings took place: the first at Fort Gibson in the Western Cherokee Nation, convened by U.S. LTC Loomis; the second at the Choctaw Agency at Fort Coffee, organized by Major William Armstrong acting at U.S. Indian Agent for the Choctaws.
At Fort Gibson March 13th, the attendees listened intently as newspaper accounts of the famine “decimating Ireland” were read to the audience. When LTC Loomis called for contributions, many recalled their own struggles over the Trail of Tears and were moved to give. The Arkansas Intelligencer reported donations of $103.30 were collected at Fort Gibson. . . increased by a collection on Sunday the 14th to $130, which was promptly forwarded to the Mayor of New York”
Ten days later at the meeting at Fort Coffee, Major Armstrong, read a circular produced by the “Memphis Committee” for the Irish Relief. Afterwards, a total of $170 was collected from “all subscribed agents, missionaries, traders and Indians, a considerable portion of which fund was made up by the latter. The poor Indian sending his mite to the poor Irish!”
The mysterious “Memphis Committee” and its Chairman, Charles Loafland, have faded into obscurity; no information was ever found about their circular, which in hindsight, proved to be so very persuasive to the Choctaws. There was a gentleman named Charles Lofland residing in Memphis in the late 1840s, who was the long-time Cashier of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. Although I have not researched this name, there is a book called “History of the family of Lofland in America and related families.”
The name Lofland might stem from the Irish surname Laughlin. According to available family history on Ancestry, Mr. Lofland’s 5th generation ancestor was Dorman Loughlen of County Clare, Ireland, born 1640 and immigrating to America in1664. Family members believe Dorman’s Irish surname was indeed Laughlin.
The death of Charles Lofland near Fort Pickering (Memphis) was announced in the Daily Nashville Union on January 10, 1851, page 2; burial location unknown. His namesake, Charles L. Lofland was a Civil War veteran, serving in Company A, 49th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, CSA.
Nashville, Tennessee, Friday, January 10, 1851, page 2
The Smithsonian article also describes the way the Irish people and the Choctaw have grown closer in recent years. At the invitation of the Irish, Waylon Gary White Deer, the distinguished Choctaw artist and professor of Choctaw studies at Bacone College, was invited to lead the 1995 commemorative Famine Walk in Ireland. After eight years in Ireland, White Deer returned home to Ada, Oklahoma, in 2020, and found that his small, wood-framed 1940s house had deteriorated from storm damage. Then, in 2021, a huge winter storm finished off the plumbing and the roof, and left holes in the floor.
“I was recovering from a heart procedure and didn’t have running water,” he said. “I applied for home repair assistance to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Choctaw Nation and the Chickasaw Nation. They all turned me down.” When his Irish connections found out, they immediately started a GoFundMe campaign for White Deer and publicized it across Irish media and social media. The campaign raised €17,000 in the first year, enabling White Deer to pay for a new roof, partially repair the plumbing and repair the floor, “all thanks to the people of Ireland.”
White Deer said that the “famine gift story” is not just a tale for the Irish and Choctaw people. It’s about the power of compassion and generosity,” that all of us need to hear.
“I heard the phrase [An Arrow Shot Through Time] from one of our elders, referring to a lost arrow that had been shot many years before and landed in the future,” he says. “I applied it to the famine gift story. We’ve come to the place where the arrow landed; we have it in our hands again, and we can move forward with it. It’s a story that belongs to everyone.”
Today we remember a great tragedy by a heartless government over a powerless people. We also honor the great love and compassion shown by one destitute and impoverished people toward another group in desperate need, complete strangers, on the other side of the ocean. Love truly is the language of the universe.
The
Eternal
Choctaw-Irish
Bond
FURTHER READING
“On Common Ground,” by Richard Grant, Smithsonian Magazine, Sep-Oct 2023, pages 58-65
Interview with Artist Waylon Gary White Deer, Feb 20, 2021, https://www.monah.org/three-chords-and-the-truth/2021/2/2/artist-waylon-gary-white-deer-an-arrow-shot-through-time
SOURCES
“Relief Meeting – Fort Gibson raises donations,” Arkansas Intelligencer (Van Buren, Arkansas), Saturday, 20 Mar 1847, Sat · Page 2
“The Suffering Irish,” Arkansas Intelligencer (Van Buren, Arkansas), Saturday, 20 Mar 1847, Sat · Page 2
“The Choctaws to their White Brethren of Ireland,” Arkansas Intelligencer (Van Buren, Arkansas), Saturday, 3 Apr 1847, Page 2
“The Choctaws to their White Brethren of Ireland,” The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland), Wednesday, 28 Apr 1847, Page 1
“The Late Col. Wm. Armstrong-US Indian Agent for Choctaws,” True Democrat (Little Rock, Arkansas), Monday 16 Aug 1847, Page 2
ART – ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait Charles Edward Trevelyan, by artist Eden Upton Eddis, courtesy of British National Trust Collection https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/584410
YAHOKE, ikana! Thank you, friends. All my relations!
We are all one if we choose to be! We can choose to practice tolerance and compassion instead of judgment and ridicule.
Much GRATITUDE for spending time on a Choctaw Journey with me.
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