Recognition, Resilience & Relief: The Meaning of Gift

“Recognition, Resilience and Relief” provides an interpretation of the ways in which the gift demonstrates that the tribe was not only acknowledging the Irish and their plight, but was also relating to Padraig Kirwan hopes to show that the recognition revealed in the Choctaw Nation's gift to the Irish in 1847 came to be associated with deep senses of empathy, connection, and appreciation as well as the forms of political and cultural autonomy that come with sovereignty. By closely examining the newspapers of the day, and by considering the analogies and synergies that the Choctaw and the Irish often made and generated between them, he argues that the gift has become a powerful placeholder for both communities pride in their own sense of charity, internationalism, resilience, and spirit.