Choctaw Academy
The Choctaw Academy was a historic Indian boarding school at Blue Spring in Scott County, Kentucky, for Choctaw students. It existed from 1818 to 1842.
History
[edit]The Choctaw Academy was a federally subsidized American Indian boarding school started in 1818 in Scott County, Kentucky. Its initial purpose was to educate and assimilate Choctaw boys when the U.S. government was in a phase of being heavily involved with Native affairs. The early school, located on the property of U.S. Representative Richard Mentor Johnson, struggled with limited funding and quickly failed due to lack of funding. The Academy picked up some movement through a Mississippi treaty where the Choctaw Nation set aside funds for education and the school was reopened around 1825. Chief Peter Pitchlynn and other leaders of the Choctaw had worked with U.S. Representative Richard Mentor Johnson (D-Kentucky) to request that part of the treaty money be used on schools.
The school is grouped with the Baptist evangelistic movement due to a small school opened by Thomas Henderson, a Baptist minister, which acted as such a place for Choctaw children. However, The Choctaw Academy eventually grew beyond that title and became a great education center for Indian children across many tribes. Later, the U.S. War Department took greater control of the school to make it better fit their needs of assimilating Natives, and a substantial three-story stone building was constructed to support growing enrollment and government involvement At its height and under new federal leadership, Rep. Johnson, the school took in over 100 students of many tribes outside of the Choctaw also including the Creek, Chickasaw, Miami, and Potawatomi. [1]
Closure and preservation of site
[edit]Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, most Choctaw were forced by the US to move to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaw ceased funding the school in 1842 when various reservation schools were founded at their new location, including Spencer Academy.[2][3]
Long abandoned, by 2017 the stone Choctaw Academy building was dilapidated, and the roof was caving in. Private fundraising was started in Kentucky to save the 1825 building, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's Chahta Foundation made a grant for preservation.[4]
Notable alumni and faculty
[edit]- Julia Chinn, wife/slave of Vice President Johnson, manager of the Choctaw Academy,
- John Tecumseh Jones, interpreter, Baptist minister, businessman, friend of John Brown and founder of Ottawa University in Kansas
- Robert Ward Johnson, US Senator from Arkansas, Confederacy supporter
- Robert McDonald Jones, Choctaw tribal member, businessman, Confederate politician
References
[edit]- ^ Snyder, Christina (2017). Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson. Oxford, UK ; New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-939906-2.
- ^ Tim Talbott, "Choctaw Indian Academy," ExploreKYHistory, accessed February 28, 2021, https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/594.
- ^ "Not Just a Hunting Ground: Native Americans in Kentucky - Choctaw Academy." Lex History, Lexington History Museum, lexhistory.org/edu/not-just-hunting-ground-native-americans-kentucky-choctaw-academy. Exhibit Panel http://lexhistory.org/sites/default/files/Choctaw%20academy.pdf
- ^ Katherine Flynn, "Kentucky Ophthalmologist Fundraises to Save Choctaw Academy", Preservation Magazine, https://savingplaces.org/stories/kentucky-opthalmologist-fundraises-choctaw-academy#.Yg0ehurMJPY