James Lawrence McDonald- First Native American Lawyer
James L. McDonald was known as the first Native American Lawyer. He was born in 1801 in the Choctaw tribal homeland in Mississippi to a European father and his mother, who was a trader and also a landowner. His mother was dedicated to the education of her son. She hoped that he would one day be a tribal leader. As a boy, he attended a nearby Quaker mission school. Young McDonald would later study under Philip E. Thomas who was a part of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting, which according to their official organization website, is “the regional organizing unit for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the area of West Virginia, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Phillip E. Thomas reached out to the Department of War, describing the potential that McDonald held and the possibility of using him as a means to assist in the removal of Native Americans from their tribal homelands.
Thomas McKenny, Quaker and United States Government Official, assisted McDonald in providing him with a place to stay and a job at a dry goods store until he graduated in 1818. McKenny was so impressed by McDonald and his abilities that he urged the secretary of war John C. Calhoun to gather federal funds to further young James McDonald’s schooling. During his time working for the government, James would take classes during school holidays, taking classes on Greek, Latin, philosophy, business, surveying, and science.
During the first half of the 19th century, Thomas McKenny and John C. Calhoun constantly pressured McDonald to work towards a degree in law, science, or theology. However, James yearned to return home to Choctaw territory where he considered farming and live closer to his mother. In 1821, James McDonald began studying law under the Ohio Supreme Court Justice John McLean, a good friend of Secretary John Calhoun. Just two years later in 1823, McDonald was admitted to the Ohio bar. Upon his admittance, Calhoun and McKenny worked to convince James to assist the federal government in persuading Choctaw to leave or assimilate to western culture. However, James McDonald refused to help and soon returned to his home in the Choctaw territory. Upon his return home, he became the first Choctaw lawyer as well as an adamant opponent of removal. The next year, James McDonald and David Folsom both served as the principal negotiators. Following the completion of the treaty in 1825, James had utilized his education, his experience, knowledge of surveying, and his friendship and relationship with John C. Calhoun and Thomas McKenny to ensure the protection of mission schools, obtaining high annuity payments and relinquishing debts of Choctaw that had been accumulated while working to hold onto their land in Mississippi.
James was a proponent of school and the sharing and learning of social and cultural traits and patterns of white culture. The harsh treatment and experiences he encountered from John Calhoun during the previous negotiations made him believe that the only way for Choctaw to survive was removal. So, in 1830, he signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. McDonald stayed in Mississippi where he fell in love with a white woman. But she would not marry him because he was native. This seemed to have compounded things he was already suffering from, depression and alcoholism. James McDonald took his own life in September 1831. McDonald was a true trailblazer and fought for the survival and rights of his people. He fought for them to remain on their land and to safeguard their culture until the very end.