In this conceptual piece, we situate settler colonial theory and qualitative inquiry in a discussion about the research(ing) of social studies education. The context for this article includes our visit and conversations with 9th grade Oklahoma history teachers and their teaching and curriculum within Indigneous contexts. Although not focused as an…

In 2007, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma amended its constitution to limit membership to only those who can trace lineal descent to an individual listed as "Cherokee by Blood" on the final Dawes Rolls. This exercise of sovereignty paradoxically ties the Dawes Rolls, the colonial instruments used to divide the lands and peoples of the…

Beginning November 2006, and continuing through December 2007, Oklahomans were alerted to the promotions of the Oklahoma Centennial. For Indigenous Oklahomans, this was a problematic marking of a historical event. The Centennial's grand-narrative advanced a story privileging the "pioneers" who "settled the land" as the official…

The Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch Real Wild West show ran from 1906 to 1931, outlasting the famous Buffalo Bill's Wild West show by more than a decade. From its beginnings in Oklahoma Territory, the Real Wild West show traveled national and international circuits and built a broad roster of performers, including more than 150 American Indians. During…

In the late 1920s, Kiowa photographer Horace Poolaw began documenting daily life in southwestern Oklahoma with the camera. As Poolaw began making dramatically posed, narrative-rich portraits of family members, historian Lewis Mumford asserted that the modern individual now viewed him or herself "as a public character, "being…

This study addresses the ways in which Natives practiced self-silence in regard to public Civil War commemoration. Notwithstanding the incredible impact on Indian Territory and Indian lives, Oklahoma Indians themselves did not typically commemorate the Civil War. Therefore, Native American contribution to the Civil War was largely skewed in the…

In the five hundred years of European and American globalization of the world, seldom have Indigenous peoples been invited to a constitutional convention and first legislature to express their perspectives and concerns. Rarely in the five-hundred-year history of the European and American colonization of the world were the rights of the Indigenous…

Challenging histories of male-dominated composition instruction during the nineteenth century, this article recovers composition practices at the Cherokee National Female Seminary, locating the practices at the intersections of gender, race, and colonization. Through Indigenous storytelling and archival research methods, the author asserts that…

After two elections and several recounts and court decisions, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has installed a new principal chief for the first time in a dozen years. Unlike his predecessor, Chief Bill John Baker has not opposed descendants of the tribe's former slaves, known as the Cherokee Freedmen, having rights as tribal citizens. That legal…

The fragmentation of large nineteenth-century reservations resulted in the creation of American Indian allotment geographies in the United States. Federal Indian policy, namely the General Allotment Act of 1887, allowed the US government to break up large reservations, allot land to individual Indians, and sell the surplus to non-Indian settlers.…

At first glance, Miami University in southwestern Ohio seems an unlikely spot for a major American Indian language and cultural preservation and revitalization project. There are no reservations in the state, nor is there a significant American Indian population. Yet, Miami University houses the Myaamia Project, a unique collaboration between…

While radio personality Will Rogers's pioneering role in radio is obvious (he worked in the medium during its earliest years), its connections to Cherokee and other tribal technologies have been neglected. This failure to recognize Rogers's part in this particular strain of Cherokee history is a symptom of a larger cultural illness in the United…

Against the backdrop of internal colonialism, this article examines the educational and social lives of Allen Wright and his children to better understand how this Choctaw family successfully navigated the pressures of dual cultures by: (1) providing the socio-political context of the indigenous culture prior to Wright's birth; (2) chronicling and…

Diane Glancy's historical fiction, "Pushing the Bear", reconstructs one episode in the Cherokee Trails of Tears (there were actually several relocations to the west, for the Cherokee and the other eastern tribes of the same period). The Removal of eastern peoples from their ancestral lands westward to eventual resettlement in Oklahoma is…

Using technical writing basics, a cohort of Lighthorse Police Officers from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation added to their tribe's cultural history by recording part of their family and clan history as well as documenting their law enforcement careers and education.