The Choctaws were one of the largest and most advanced tribes in all of North America. Yet, with all of their knowledge they left few if any written records. The first written treaty between the United States and the Choctaw Indians was January 3, 1786. Nine more treaties were agreed upon, the final being the infamous Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty signed September 15, 1830. There were additional treaties made with the Choctaws who had removed to Indian Territory. Those who remained became the target of unscrupulous land speculators as the Federal Government made repeated efforts to remove them. 

The Choctaw Indian tribe had existed in the Southeastern United States for several centuries before the Dutch engineer and adventurer Bernard Romans visited the area in 1771 that would later become Newton County. He was not the first white man to come in contact with the Choctaw Indian tribe or the first to write about them, but he was the first person to attempt to both describe their customs in great detail and to map the villages in which they lived. During a process of approximately two years he traveled throughout the Choctaw Nation to meet the Chahta people and write about his experiences.

The first documented visit of a white man to Newton County, Mississippi, was that of Regis du Roullet, an officer of the French colonial government, who from October 13 through October 15, 1729, stayed at the village of the Yellow Cane People, Oskilahna, now in southeastern Newton County and near the Jasper County line. He would later visit other villages in the county. Roullet was authorized by the French provisional government to strengthen trading relations between the French and Choctaws while dissuading the Choctaws from trading with the English. Based on notes from his journal we know that traders, both from France and England, had preceded him into Choctaw territory.