of sweetmeat, or in making the
beverage, also known as "chocolate," obtained by dissolving cakes of
chocolate in boiling water or milk (see COCOA). The word came into Eng.
through the Fr. _chocolat_ or Span. _chocolate_ from the Mex.
_chocolatl_. According to the _New English Dictionary_ (quoting R.
Simeon, _Dict. de la langue Nahuatl_), this was "an article of food made
of ... the seeds of cacao and of the tree pochotl (_Bombax ceiba_)," and
was etymologically distinct from the Mexican _cacauatl_, cacao, or
cocoa.

CHOCTAWS, CHAHTAS, or CHACATOS (apparently a corruption of Span.
_chato_, flattened), a tribe of North American Indians of Muskhogean
stock. They are now settled in Oklahoma, but when first known to
Europeans they occupied the district now forming the southern part of
Mississippi and the western part of Alabama. On the settlement of
Louisiana they formed an alliance with the French, and assisted them
against the Natchez and Chickasaws; but by degrees they entered into
friendly relations with the English, and at last, in 1786, recognized
the supremacy of the United States by the treaty of Hopewell. Their
emigration westward began about 1800, and the last remains of their
original territory were ceded in 1830. In their new settlements the
Choctaws continued to advance in prosperity till the outbreak of the
Civil War, which considerably diminished the population and ruined a
large part of their property. They sided with the Confederates, and
their territory was occupied by Confederate troops; and accordingly at
the close of the war they were regarded as having lost their rights.
Part of their land they were forced to surrender to the government;
their slaves were emancipated; and provision was claimed for them in the
shape of either land or money. Since then they have considerably
recovered their position. They long constituted a quasi-independent
people under the title of the Choctaw nation, and were governed by a
chief and a national council of forty members, according to a written
constitution, dating in the main from 1838; they possessed a regular
judicial system and employed trial by jury. Tribal government virtually
ceased in 1906. The Choctaws number some 18,000. A few groups still
linger in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Choctaw language has been
reduced to writing, and brought to some degree of literary precision.

See INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN; _Handbook of American Indians_, ed. F.W.
Hodge