The Dunegan Freedman School of the Choctaw Nation

Recently, a fellow blogger shared with me an image from one of the Freedmen schools. This particular document reflect the enrollment of Freedmen children in Blue County in the SW corner of the Choctaw Nation. The school was called the Dunegan Freedman Neighborhood School.

The Dunegan School is one of the earliest Choctaw Freedmen schools whose records can be found. Keeping in mind that Freedmen were adopted into the Nation in 1885 in the Choctaw Nation. The Dunegan Freedman School was established and operating a year later. The record above reflects students enrolled between September and December of 1886. Twenty student were enrolled at the time. The school used McGuffy's reader, which was a popular textbook used in the 19th century. A majority of the students were beginning learners in either the first or second reader. However, young scholar, Levi Dunford was in the fourth level reader, and Tennie Harris was in the third level reader. The teacher at the school was Ella Lewis, and the local Trustee, was Stephen Dunford.

It is not known how long the Dunegan Freedman School operated nor whether it was later absorbed into the Oklahoma school system after statehood. And unfortunately, there are no images of the school that have been located, in addition--the exact location of the site of the school remains a mystery as well. But as this was a Choctaw Freedman School, many of the names of the students are found on the Dawes Roll, created in the pate 1890s into the early 1900s. Do the post office locations on the Dawes cards, or do the residences on the card, reflect where the school may have been? That is not easy to determine. Also since there was more than a decade between the time the school record was made and the data for the Dawes card was collected.

However, this record is share, because clearly, school records, along with historic maps are extremely useful tools when researching the family history. In this case--one learns not only where the children went to school, but with whom they studied, and with whom they learned.  These school records often reflect data about communities that no longer existed. In the record above, this was an early record from 1886--only 1 year from the time that Choctaw Freedmen were adopted and made citizens of the Choctaw Nation.

For those whose ancestors were Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen this is especially important, because after statehood, many of the Freedmen settlements disappeared. This school was located in what was Blue County in the old Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation. Neither Blue County, nor the Pushmataha District exist today, so in this case, the location of this Freedmen school, and this Freedman community will have to be determined by utilizing historic maps. The largest city today in that area would be Caddo. Those Freedmen communities from which the children would have come, would have been south of Atoka, and largely in the rural areas.

Map showing Blue County in Choctaw Nation

Finding School Records
During the 1880-1900 period Freedmen in both Chickasaw and Choctaw nations were working for the establishment of schools for their children. Eventually the Choctaw Nation did provide some funds to establish several "colored neighborhood schools", which at least began the campaign for literacy, long sought by freedmen parents. School records for many of these small but critically needed schools do still remain and many of them were captured and have since been digitized. Family Search  has placed these records online, although they can only be viewed when utilizing the many Mormon family history centers throughout the country.

School records such as the Dunegan Freedman School, shown above, should be used for all of Indian Territory, Freedmen research. Also it should be noted that because Blue County was adjacent to the Chickasaw Nation, there is a strong possibility that these records will reflect the names of Chickasaw Freedmen children as well as Choctaw Freedmen.

The critical point is that multiple records, beyond the Dawes Rolls should be used, and school records, old maps are essential for documenting the lives of Freedmen in those years between 1866 and 1907 statehood. We must utilize as many tools as possible to tell the story.

Hopefully many families connected to the Dunford, Shoals, Matubbie (Maytubby), Chatman (Chapman), Green, Battler, Nail, and Harris families, may find an ancestor on the roster. Knowing that their ancestors were among the first to finally begin the family's path to literacy, should enhance their story and expand their family narrative.