Back Then: A Choctaw Family’s Noble Legacy of Perseverance

Young Louis Durant, a French "cour de bois" left Canada in the late 1700's seeking adventure and riches through the fur trade. Working out of a French fort in the lower Mississippi River he met and married She Ne Yah, a young Choctaw maiden. Durant became a leader in the Choctaw nation and a Captain leading a detachment of Choctaw troops fighting with General Andrew Jackson and Choctaw Chief Pushmataha in the War of 1812. Captain Durant sat with Choctaw Chiefs in the negotiations and signing of many Treaties with the United States government that led to the Trail of Tears and forced removl to the Indian Territory west of their ancestral homeland on the Mississippi River. Follow six generations of Durants as they struggle with aggressive white settlers who harass them and force them from their Mississippi homeland. Travel the Trail of Tears with them as they seek a new home in a foreign land. Discover how these pioneers in Oklahoma persevere to make a new life for their children in Texas. This is a true story of merging nationalities and a government's forced removal and imposing sovereignty on an independent, agricultural and peaceful Choctaw Nation.

Beverly Jean Hardy Allen is the daughter of Jeanette Jean Hilliard Hardy and Leroy Hardy. She is married to her high school sweetheart John Marshall Allen and is the mother of two children John Andrew Allen and Julianne Meredith Allen Albertson and grandmother of two grandsons, Jacob and Anthony and a granddaughter Avery Grace. She has been able to extract this story of her ancestors from research that she began in 2009 scanning government documents and books, traveling to Mississippi, North Carolina and Oklahoma for research, and from interviews with her mother Jeanette Jean Hilliard. Discovering the stories of her ancestors has been life changing. It has strengthened her admiration of those family members who struggled and endured to make a pathway for her to a better life. Her appreciation for their ability to endure hardship, strong work ethic, devotion to family, and faith in God has grown tremendously. As a peace loving and noble people with a pioneering spirit, they were confident and determined that their hard work would lead to a better life for them and their families.