"Now Watch Us Grow": Education, Refusal, and the Settler Colonization Project in Indian Territory

• In Event: Manifesting Destiny: Race, Place, and the Disruption of the American West

Abstract

Years prior to the state formation of Oklahoma, powerful economic forces were strategically plotting on their approach their movement to join the Union. This paper examines how Indigenous and Freedpeople school sites addressed impending state formation and the settler colonization project. The Seminole, Muscogee Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee Nations and the formerly enslaved Freedpeople rapidly began to establish school sites for their communities. Within the Seminole Nation, early school sites were fully integrated which was not the norm in Indian Territory. As Indigenous tribes developed educational institutions, how did they view schools as sites of refusal? Who were the pivotal leaders that emerged from this landscape? How did their educational experiences contribute to their response to state formation?

Author

• Jennifer Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author