Image taken from page 487 of "Memoirs, official and personal; with sketches of travels among the Northern and Southern Indians" by Thomas Loraine McKenney, 1846. Pushmataha (1760s - December 24, 1824), the "Indian General", was one of the three regional chiefs of the major divisions of the Choctaw iIndians. He was highly regarded among Native Americans, Europeans, and white Americans for his skill and cunning in both war and diplomacy. Rejecting the offers of alliance and reconquest proffered by Tecumseh, he led the Choctaw to fight on the side of the US in the War of 1812, and later negotiated several treaties. In 1824, he traveled to Washington and petitioned the Federal government against further cessions of Choctaw land. There he acquired a viral respiratory infection, became seriously ill and was visited by Andrew Jackson. His last recorded words were these: "I am about to die, but you will return to our country. As you go along the paths, you will see the flowers, and hear the birds sing; but Pushmataha will see and hear them no more. When you reach home they will ask you, 'Where is Pushmataha?' And you will say to them, 'He is no more.' They will hear your words as they do the fall of the great oak in the stillness of the midnight woods."