A man divided, a house majestic.

The son of a French-Canadian trader named Louis Lefleur and a woman who was one-quarter Choctaw, Greenwood Leflore was 12 when his family established a rustic log tavern on the Natchez Trace at the edge of the Mississippi Hills. From those modest circumstances, Leflore would rise first to become a powerful Choctaw chief and then to assume a prominent role in Mississippi white society; his home, Malmaison, was one of the most magnificent in the state. Yet there were many who believed that Leflore’s wealth and position in white society were purchased at great cost to the Choctaw people.

As an important tribal chief (despite his being only one-eighth Choctaw), Leflore was instrumental in convincing the Choctaw to accept the terms of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. While the treaty called for most of the tribe’s removal to Oklahoma, it also provided a thousand acres for Leflore in Carroll County so that he could stay behind in wealth and comfort. Not surprisingly, his standing among the remaining Choctaw declined, yet he quickly rose to prominence in the area’s white planter society as a state legislator and personal friend of Jefferson Davis. Malmaison, his palatial home, was the equal to any in Mississippi, and when he died in 1865, he was buried near it. Leflore hoped to be remembered as the leader who negotiated well on behalf of the Choctaws, yet many felt he had negotiated better for himself, and even his beloved Malmaison was set on fire in 1942 and burned to the ground.

Choosing sides was also a problem in the city up ahead, when two sides refused to give up competing claims, and life turned into a real tug of war. It was Grenada that made the peace.