CHOCOLATE, a paste of the ground kernels of the cocoa bean, mixed with sugar, vanilla or other flavouring, made into a cake, which is used for the manufacture of various forms of sweetmeat, or in making the beverage, also known as “chocolate,” obtained by dissolving cakes of chocolate in boiling water or milk (see [Cocoa]). The word came into Eng. through the Fr. chocolat or Span. chocolate from the Mex. chocolatl. According to the New English Dictionary (quoting R. Siméon, Dict. de la langue Nahuatl), this was “an article of food made of ... the seeds of cacao and of the tree pochotl (Bombax ceiba),” and was etymologically distinct from the Mexican cacauatl, cacao, or cocoa.
CHOCTAWS, Chahtas, or Chacatos (apparently a corruption of Span. chato, flattened), a tribe of North American Indians of Muskhogean stock. They are now settled in Oklahoma, but when first known to Europeans they occupied the district now forming the southern part of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama. On the settlement of Louisiana they formed an alliance with the French, and assisted them against the Natchez and Chickasaws; but by degrees they entered into friendly relations with the English, and at last, in 1786, recognized the supremacy of the United States by the treaty of Hopewell. Their emigration westward began about 1800, and the last remains of their original territory were ceded in 1830. In their new settlements the Choctaws continued to advance in prosperity till the outbreak of the Civil War, which considerably diminished the population and ruined a large part of their property. They sided with the Confederates, and their territory was occupied by Confederate troops; and accordingly at the close of the war they were regarded as having lost their rights. Part of their land they were forced to surrender to the government; their slaves were emancipated; and provision was claimed for them in the shape of either land or money. Since then they have considerably recovered their position. They long constituted a quasi-independent people under the title of the Choctaw nation, and were governed by a chief and a national council of forty members, according to a written constitution, dating in the main from 1838; they possessed a regular judicial system and employed trial by jury. Tribal government virtually ceased in 1906. The Choctaws number some 18,000. A few groups still linger in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Choctaw language has been reduced to writing, and brought to some degree of literary precision.
See [Indians, North American]; Handbook of American Indians, ed. F.W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).
CHODKIEWICZ, JAN KAROL (1560-1621), Polish general, was the son of Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna. After being educated at the Wilna academy he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau. In 1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who predeceased him. His first military service at home was against the Cossack rising of Nalewajko as lieutenant to Zolkiewski, and he subsequently assisted Zamoyski in his victorious Moldavian campaign. Honours and dignities were now showered upon him. In 1599 he was appointed starosta of Samogitia, and in 1600 acting commander-in-chief of Lithuania. In the war against Sweden for the possession of Livonia he brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke of Sudermania, afterwards Charles IX, from Riga. In 1604 he captured Dorpat, twice defeated the Swedish generals at Bialy Kamien, and was rewarded with the grand bâton of Lithuania. Criminally neglected by the diet, which from sheer niggardliness turned a deaf ear to all his requests for reinforcements and for supplies and money to pay his soldiers, Chodkiewicz nevertheless more than held his own against the Swedes. His crowning achievement was the great victory of Kirkholm (Aug. 27th, 1605), when with barely 5000 men he annihilated a threefold larger Swedish army; for which feat he received letters of congratulation from the pope, all the Catholic potentates, of Europe, and even from the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia. Yet this great victory was absolutely fruitless, owing to the domestic dissensions which prevailed in Poland during the following five years. Chodkiewicz’s own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last en masse in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the grand hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. Chodkiewicz was one of the few magnates who remained loyal to the king, and after helping to defeat the rebels in Poland a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes recalled him thither, and once more he relieved Riga besides capturing Pernau. Meanwhile the war with Muscovy broke out, and Chodkiewicz was sent against Moscow with an army of 2000 men—though if there had been a spark of true patriotism in Poland he could easily have marshalled 100,000. Moreover, the diet neglected to pay for the maintenance even of this paltry 2000, with the result that they mutinied and compelled their leader to retreat through the heart of Muscovy to Smolensk. Not till the crown prince Wladislaus arrived with tardy reinforcements did the war assume a different character, Chodkiewicz opening a new career of victory by taking the fortress of Drohobu in 1617. The Muscovite war had no sooner been ended by the treaty of Deulina than Chodkiewicz was hastily despatched southwards to defend the southern frontier against the Turks, who after the catastrophe of Cecora (see [Zolkiewski]) had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. An army of 160,000 Turkish veterans led by Sultan Osman in person advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed the Dnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress of Khotin right in the path of the Ottoman advance. Here for a whole month the Polish hero held the sultan at bay, till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress (Sept. 24th, 1621).
See Adam Stanislaw Naruszewicz, Life of J.K. Chodkiewicz (Pol.; 4th ed., Cracow, 1857-1858); Lukasz Golebiowski, The Moral Side of J.K. Chodkiewicz as indicated by his Letters (Pol.; Warsaw, 1854).
(R. N. B.)