The Struggle for Schools: Education and Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory

Rowan Steineker

“The Struggle for Schools” examines the history of education in nineteenth-century Indian Territory and early Oklahoma. In particular, it explores the institutional history of the Mvskoke Creek Nation’s self-determined school system and its colonization at the turn of the twentieth century. In response to settler colonial policies during the 1800s, the Mvskoke Creek government and collectively the Five Tribes (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Nations) employed nation-building strategies to meet the needs of their citizens. As part of this larger process, the Mvskoke Creek Nation created extensive public education programs – primary schools, secondary academies, college scholarships, and teaching training – for their Native, Afro-Native, and African American freedmen citizens. This model not only provided indigenized formal education, it also proved to be a viable alternative to U.S. federal Indian education policies during the same era. By the 1890s, however, colonization and white supremacy drastically altered the state of education in Indian Territory. The federal government dissolved the Five Tribes’ institutions and mandated that Native students attend newly formed public schools with white settlers. Meanwhile, Afro-Natives and African American settlers became subject to Jim Crow segregation. This complex history reveals the diversity of Native American educational experiences how they have intersected with African American and Euro-American education in colonial contexts.

About Rowan Steineker

Rowan Steineker is an Assistant Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. She received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Oklahoma in 2016. Her research focuses on the history of education, as well as the intersecting histories of Indigenous and African American peoples in colonial contexts. Her current book project, “The Struggle for Schools” examines the history of education in nineteenth century Indian Territory and early Oklahoma. In particular, it focuses on the institutional history of the nineteenth-century Mvskoke Creek Nation’s self-determined education system and its colonization at the turn of the twentieth century. Her research has received previous support from the Newberry Library, Phi Alpha Theta, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and her work has appeared in the History of Education Quarterly