Angie Debo Remembered

Remembering remarkable Oklahoma women during National Women's History Month:

Angie Debo (1890-1988) - Raised in Marshall, Oklahoma. Teacher, researcher, scholar. Leading author/scholar on Indian history. Published nine books including And Still The Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes. The University of Oklahoma Press, fearing it was too controversial, refused to honor their publishing contract. It was later published by Princeton University Press. Shirley Leckie wrote her biography, Angie Debo: Pioneering Historian (Oklahoma Western Biographies, Vol 18). PBS did a remarkable documentary on Debo entitled Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo, that was broadcast in 1988. (Here is how American Experience summarized the show and the woman:

"As a child in 1899, Angie Debo was taken to Oklahoma in a covered wagon. She would become her state's most controversial historian -- her career threatened when she uncovered a cache of documents which proved a widespread conspiracy to cheat Native Americans out of oil-rich lands."

Debo's papers are housed at Oklahoma State Library. Her portrait hangs in the Oklahoma State Capitol. And there is a statue of her in front of the Stillwater Public Library.

If you want to leave a lasting impression, writer. The following list of Debo's writings comes from the Center for Great Plains Studies at University of Nebraska-Lincoln website:

Works by Angie Debo
(For additional information: www.library.okstate.edu/scua/debo.htm)
Dissertation
"History of the Choctaw Nation from the End of the Civil War to the Close of the Tribal Period." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1933.
Books
(With J. Fred Rippy) The Historical Background of the American Policy of Isolation. Northhampton, Mass.: Smith College Studies in History, 1924.
The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1934, 2nd edition, 1961.
And Still the Waters Run. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940; reprint, Gordian Press, 1966; reprint, Princeton University Press, 1972; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.
The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941; reprint 1979.
Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Capital. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943.
Prairie City: The Story of an American Community. New York: Knopf, 1944; reprint, Norman: University Press of Oklahoma, 1998.
Oklahoma: Foot-Loose and Fancy-Free. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949; reprint 1987.
The Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions. Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1951.
A History of the Indians of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970.
Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.
Edited Books
Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State, edited by Angie Debo and John M. Oskison, compiled by Writers' Program, Work Projects Administration, State of Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press, 1941, 2nd edition, 1945, reprint, 1947; reprint, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986.
The Cowman's Southwest: Being the Reminiscences of Oliver Nelson, Freighter, Camp Cook, Cowboy, Frontiersman in Kansas, Indian Territory, Texas, and Oklahoma, 1878-1893, by Oliver Nelson. Edited by Angie Debo. The Western Frontiersman Series, 4. Glendale, Calif.: A.H. Clark Co., 1953; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians, by Horatio B. Cushman. Edited with a foreword by Angie Debo. Redlands Press, 1962, reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
With Five Reservations, by Dell O'Hara, edited by Angie Debo and Harold H. Leake. Creekside Publications, 1986.
Chapters in Monographs
"Apaches as Southeastern Indians." In Indians of the Lower South: Past and Present, edited by John K. Mahon. Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference, 1975.
"Edward Everett Dale: The Teacher." In Frontier Historian: The Life and Work of Edward Everett Dale, edited by Arrell M. Gibson. University of Oklahoma Press, 1975.
"Major Indian Record Collections in Oklahoma." In Indian-White Relations: A Persistent Paradox, edited by Jane F. Smith and Robert M. Kvasnicka. Howard University Press, 1976.