The Choctaw language was one of the languages spoken at this time in the South-Eastern United States by a tribe with significant contact with African slaves.[23] The major language of trade in this area, Mobilian Jargon, was based on Choctaw-Chickasaw, two Muskogean-family languages. This language was used, in particular, for communication with the slave-owning[24][25] Cherokee (an Iroquoian-family language).[26][27] For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the US government,[28] after having fought alongside them at the Battle of New Orleans.