LeFlore Choctaw Family – List of Mixed Bloods

When prominent mixed-blood families began to emerge from the Choctaw people in the early 1800s they usually did so where one or both parents were mixed bloods themselves. A case in point is the Leflore family. According to Cushman, 1 the brothers Michael and Louis were living in[90] Choctaw country as early as the late eighteenth century. 2 Cushman has the LeFlores in Mobile not long after the end of the French and Indian War and identifies them as French Canadians who entered Choctaw country as traders, Louis marrying into the mixed-blood Cravat family already in residence there (see Chart 16). J.F.H. Claiborne claimed to have personally known Louis LeFlore and recounted that:

“Louis Le Fleur…owned one of these boats [used in trade with Panton & Company in Pensacola and Natchez], and in this business laid the foundation of his large fortune. When 1 knew him, in my early life, he had established an extensive plantation and cattle ranche [sic] in the Yazoo prairies, in the present county of Holmes, where he died a few years after the last treaty with the Choctaws. He had one hundred slaves and as many Indians, living about him. He was a small man, a Canadian, speaking a singular patois of provincial French and Choctaw, and though over eighty years old, was an indefatigable hunter, spending whole days in the overflowed prairies and swamps. He told me that he had been a great dancer in his youth, in Canada, and was called the flower of the fete. Hence the name Le Fleur, and the sobriquet superseded his original name.” 3

Claiborne also stated that:

Key to Chart
Probable = P,  Countryman = C,  Yes = Y,  Trader = T,
Married = md,  Mixed Blood = mb

Chart 16[90a]

LeFlore List of Mixed Bloods

NameLocationMBRemarks
wdt_IDNameLocationMBRemarks
1LeFlore, (nfn) Pearl/Yazoo RYmd a Thompson
2LeFlore, (nfn) Pearl/Yazoo RYmd a McGee
3LeFlore, (nfn) Pearl/Yazoo RYmd a Wilson
4Leflore, Anna
5LeFlore, Basil 
6LeFlore, Benjamin Young Warrior Ymd Mary Juzan
7LeFlore, Capt. W Big BlackY12 in family
8LeFlore, Clarissa Ydtr of Louis
9LeFlore, Elizabeth Pearl/Yazoo RYdtr Greenwood
10LeFlore, Emilee Ymd a Brashears
11LeFlore, Felice Pearl/Yazoo RYmd Samuel Long
12LeFlore, Forbis to OKLAY
13LeFlore, Greenwood Yazoo/DeltaY
14LeFlore, Henry NatchezCBritish Interrupter
15LeFlore, Isaac Big BlackY2 in family
16LeFlore, Jack Trading HouseP
17LeFlore, Jackson Yson of L. Leflore
18LeFlore, Joel Big BlackY7 in family
19LeFlore, John Pearl/Yazoo RYson Greenwood
20LeFlore, Johnson Yson of Michael
21LeFlore, Judy P
22LeFlore, Louis Pearl/Yazoo RC
23LeFlore, Maj. Funagusha CreekYson, Bazeal 
24LeFlore, Maj. Louis Yazoo Valley
25LeFlore, Mary Ydtr of Michael

[91]”He kept a noted house of entertainment for travelers, in the nation, on the road between Natchez and Nashville, and he was persuaded by some of these to send his son [Greenwood] to Nashville for his education. He returned home in 1817, and it was soon perceived that he was no ordinary man. He had fathomed the nature of both the white man and the Indian, and was able to cope with either. He was shrewd and penetrating, social yet sufficiently reserved, ambitious as Lucifer, yet guarded in the expression of it, an earnest advocate of reform and education, and giving zealous support to the missionaries. 4

Greenwood’s patron was John Donley of Nashville, a mail carrier who took a liking to the boy. Later, around 1820, Greenwood married Donley’s daughter Rosa, 5 and some years later her sister. 6 After Removal, Greenwood went on to achieve wealth and fame as a planter and Mississippi legislator. 7

According to Cushman, Greenwood had three brothers: William, Benjamin, and Basil; and five sisters: Clarissa, Emilee, and three others whose names Cushman did not remember. Clarissa married a man named Wilson, and when he[92] died she wed Alfred Leach. Emilee married A. H. Carpenter, a lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi and had two sons, Jerome and Surry. The three unnamed daughters of Louis LeFleur married respectively: John Harkins, a mixed blood; a man named Harris; and a man named Traydu or Traydew. 8

The Leflores are a strong example of successful mixed-blood habitation in the Choctaw Nation. Their involvement in cattle raising, farming, trade, and land speculation, as well as the maintenance of a stand on the Natchez Trace (at present-day French Camp) also were positive examples of “civilized” enterprises to the Choctaw Indians. The family intermarried widely with other mixed bloods as well as with the leading Indian families. Their influence was powerful and widespread in the nation.


Surnames:
Leflore,

Collection:
Wells, Dr. Samuel James. Choctaw Mixed Bloods and the Advent of Removal. University of Southern Mississippi. 1987. © Dr. Samuel James Wells, 1987. Used by permission.

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Citations:
  1. Cushman, History, 343.[]
  2. Another Leflore, Henry, is found in 1770 in Natchez as an interpreter (probably with the Choctaw tribe which began to frequent that area after the French destruction of the Natchez tribe) for the British, indicating that he had spent some years with that tribe. It is logical to connect Henry to the other LeFlores, although no documentary link has been found. Margaret Fisher Dalrymple, ed., The Merchant of Manchac: The Letterbooks of John Fitzpatrick, 1768-1790, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978) 59n47.[]
  3. Claiborne, Mississippi, 218.[]
  4. Ibid15.[]
  5. R. Halliburton, Jr., “Chief Greenwood Leflore and His Malmaison Mansion,” in Samuel J. Wells and Roseanna Tubby, eds., After Removal: The Choctaw in Mississippi, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986) 56.[]
  6. Cushman, History, 347.[]
  7. Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976) 489; Claiborne, Mississippi, 515-6.[]
  8. Leflore folder, Lackey collection, USM.[]

16 thoughts on “LeFlore Choctaw Family – List of Mixed Bloods”

  1. Hi I’m a descendant of Louis Leflore , I’m from the unnamed daughter who married John Harkins! Her name was Louisa Leflore. She had 5 children with Harkins, I come from their Son Willis John Harkins.

    1. Claudett Zollicoffer

      Hello family, I’m a Descendent as well of Louis Leflore. He had a son named Andrew Leflore with his 2nd wife Rebecca cravet. Andrew had a son named Westly( Big Wes, or Wilson)Leflore with his wife Caroline Wesley and his wife Callie had a daughter named Lillie Bell Leflore, Lillie is my great grandmother. I do remember seeing the name Harkins on Ancestry marrying a Leflore. I’m like you, trying to learn our family history.

  2. Who are the parents of Narcissa Leflore? I think she married Anthony Fluker. She might be the granddaughter of Greenwood Leflore. She is definitely related to the Leflore family.

  3. Very interesting my grandma was elsie June leflore-Ruff, and my Great grandfather and grandmother was Ester Erikson-leflore David leflore. Does anybody have any info on them.

  4. Henry LeFleur had a brother, Austin, and their father was a sea Capt. I didn’t see Austin’s name in the list. The two brothers owned and operated a trading post, just south of today’s, Jackson, MS. They also traded to and took supplies to different tribes of the area, Chickasaw and Choctaw. These facts are well documented in the Arkansas State History with the Louisiana Purchase. One of the brothers traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition well, while the other brother stayed with the trading post. I just read where the Crow Nation was also in the area. One of the brothers married a chief’s daughter with the last name Crow. This is the only native American history in this particular branch of my LeFleur, Brunt, Herring, family history.

    1. Lori: Henry did not have a brother named Austin. His son-in-law was Austin Holbrook – married to daughter Magdalen LaFleur. Austin was born in New Haven CT, son of sea captain John Holbrook.

    2. Kimberly Elizabeth Woods

      I believe I am related to Henri (Henry) LeFleur – I would love to connect with you if you are from the family too.

  5. I don’t understand this tail about Louis Leflore coming from Canada came from. Louis was born in what today is Mississippi. His father Jean Baptiste Leflore was indeed from France via Montreal. Jean was in the military. First stationed in Montreal then transfered to New Orleans where he married and setteled. Louis was born and raised there. The surname was Leflocq and morphed into Leflore. It was never Lefluer.

    1. I think you are correct, Chris. I’ve read that Louis LaFlore’s father was Jean Baptiste LaFlaeu or something like that and was in Mobile before 1735. He apparently was a foot soldier in the army of the Sieur de Bombelle. Louis eventually married into the Choctaw tribe through near descendents of Shumaka: Rebecca or Nancy Cravatt. There are records from the Catholic church in Mobile, I beleive.

  6. Morris james laFlore jr

    Never met my grandpa John LaFlore they say he died in 1937 but can’t find any records of death and that Idk who greenwood was my great great grandpa or uncle IDK please someone find out for me I don’t know anyone on that side my dad was Morris James LaFlore sr and his dad was John LaFlore le spelling or la I dont know please I’m lost …. Ty

  7. Jackie D saucier-Yaggi

    Does anyone know who Lydia Virginia (jennie) McCauley, Temples, Bryant was and how she was kin to the family. She owned all of what is now the Sandersville, MS land at one time. It was a wedding present from someone.

  8. I am also a descended of Greenwood. I am trying to find more information on this. If anyone has any more info they would like to share like web sites or interested in connecting on facebook. Please email me or look me up on Facebook…. lmullins1961@yahoo.com , name is Lisa Mullins. thank you

  9. I am descended from greenwood’s sister, Sylvia Ann leflore who married Rubin harris, if the information I have is correct. She would have been my 5 times great grandmother.

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