As the son of missionaries among the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi, H. B. Cushman witnessed their heartbreaking removal from the area in the 1830s. Later in life, he chronicled their culture and criticized their exploitation by whites in his historic History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians. He spent six years renewing contacts, visiting cemeteries, observing Indian councils, and studying Indian records in the original languages. Published in 1899, his history is valuable for his firsthand observations on the removal and later history of the Choctaws and Chickasaws as well as for its material on the Natchez Indians, about whom little is in print.

In 1961, historian Angie Debo abridged and edited the work to focus Cushman's notoriously rambling prose. Now, a new introduction by Clara Sue Kidwell brings light to Cushman's historic work for yet another new generation of scholars.