From Skullyville: The Lone Slave of Fort Coffee Academy

When studying the slave schedule of 1860 from the Choctaw Nation one small entry was out of the ordinary. Instead of listing the name of a slave holder, and the number of people enslaved there was one unusual entry---the slaveholder of record was "Fort Coffee Academy".

This kind of entry is most unusual, and there is nothing written about the 50 year old woman who toiled at the Academy in the school at Fort Coffee. The school was established in the 1840s for Choctaw males, and much can be found about both Fort Coffee Academy as well as New Hope, a school for females. However, the lone enslaved woman who worked at the Academy, is not mentioned. Beyond the mention of a few instructors or school staff, it is no surprise that an enslaved woman would not garner a mention by name.

The school did not last very long, and by the end of the Civil War, it was gone. Only a few images of the school exist. One photograph of the school exists and that photo reflects the remains of the school when it was in a state of deterioration and disrepair. The school was built on the site of the remains of the old military fort, but it was burned during the Civil War, and the Choctaw Nation no longer focused on the site for a school.

After the war, when slavery ended, with the Treaty of 1866 the few enslaved people who lived in the area, worked as servants for many Choctaw households in the area. No knowledge exists at all of this woman, past her prime, but working at the school.

It can only assumed that she was cook, cleaner, and tended to numerous tasks that required physical labor at the school. Was she treated kindly? Did she endure sexual harassment in the all male environment of the school? Was she required to also live on the premises? Did she have a room or her own? Would the privacy of a lone female slave even have been considered? Did she sleep on the floor, near the fireplace? Did she have children and family of her own for whom she pined? If she had children, could she visit them? Or would she have had to wait until freedom came to connect with her own family? And importantly, did she live to see freedom and to breathe free air?

Though there are no answers, and the likelihood of a slave having freedom of movement is slim. With the daily demands of a school, there was always food to prepare, clothing and bedding to wash, and fires that needed tending. The work of this lone slave had to be difficult, lonely and sad.
There was nothing on the slave schedule indicating that a separate cabin for this enslaved woman existed, as there is no tic mark reflecting a "slave dwelling" counted. So chances are that her life consisted of every task focused on the school and her place of rest was most likely the same place as her work. On a mat perhaps, near a hearth or fireplace in the winter and near a doorway in the warmer months.

This 50 year old woman forever unnamed, would have been in her 90s if she lived until the Dawes era. Identifying her is an impossible task, but acknowledging her presence in the northernmost part of the Choctaw Nation, is as important as calling her name. She is not to be forgotten.