Education for Freedmen in the Choctaw Naiton

Recently, I had the opportunity to look at some school records from the Choctaw Nation, and the impact of seeing the names of young children being allowed access to education was moving. These records reflect not only simply names of students, but they also reflect the dreams of their parents whose early lives were those of denied access to learning.

Spring Bluff Neighborhood School with Choctaw Freedmen Scholars

In the early years after slavery was abolished, Indian Territory remained a dark place. In the nearby United States, the Freedmen's Bureau (the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands,) assisted formerly enslaved people in establishing schools. Education was going to be a critical part of their adjustment to freedom. But education was hard to come by, in the five slave holding tribes of Indian Territory.

Slavery was not officially abolished until 1866 a year after the Civil War, when the treaties were signed with each of the Five Slaveholding tribes. Newly freed Africans in both Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations had a difficult journey ahead. Unlike former slaves in the states, for two decades into freedom, African people of Indian Territory, were left without schools. And the goal for education for their children was going to be one of the most hardest hurdles to encounter.

In the 1880s Choctaw Freedmen were given citizenship. Slowly the need for schools for Freedmen children was addressed. A few early records have been found

Sulphur Spring School, Jack Fork, Choctaw Nation


But, in 1885, the Choctaw Nation finally passed a bill to adopt those they once held enslaved, as citizens. But two decades had already passed without provisions for education for the children. With the establishment of citizenship, however, there was now leverage to petition for the rights of the children to have the opportunity for education. In the mid1880s a policy was adopted to establish neighborhood schools, and among them were "colored" neighborhood schools. At last, Freedmen children were going to have the opportunity to learn. Literacy was now a viable option for them after decades of access denied.

Ironically, the Choctaw Nation officials had long been advocates of education. Decades before the Civil War, tribal leaders had sent their sons to an elite Choctaw Academy set aside for them, in rural Kentucky. After the war, education was still of value and leaders in the nation, sent their sons to elite schools in the east for post secondary education, some including ivy-league schools. Though it would over twenty years before freedmen children would be afforded the opportunity to learn, once established, this opportunity was cherished.

One one of the school rosters a notation was made about the reactions of the students and their parents for having a school in their neighborhood to attend.

The image reads: "The scholars of this school and their parents seem to be glad of the chance to have a school and as ll they can for its good."  They were truly so grateful for the chance to learn to read and write, their joy was noted on an ordinary quarterly report.

Thankfully, now in the 21st century, the rosters of the first scholars survive. These were among the first generation of children who would officially be allowed to learn. Records such as these should be among many that Freedmen researchers can pursue.