Proud History of Education

The Choctaw - a quiet, kind people - lived in present day Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. Their rural, agrarian life changed in the late 1700s due to the impact of white settlement. To co-exist, the Choctaw tried to understand and adopt the new ways.

Beginning as early as 1821, the Choctaw were one of the first tribes to build schools and provide education for their people.

Desire for Indian lands grew. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and the Choctaw were the first moved to present-day Oklahoma in 1830 by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Over 20,000 Choctaw began the journey. Thousands died in what would later be called by Choctaw leaders as a “Trail of Tears and Death.”

Missionaries sent to Oklahoma assisted the Indians. The Choctaw accepted an alien religion, constitution and legal system. Almost immediately they began building schools.

One school, established in 1891, was named after a Choctaw Chief born in Mississippi, who traveled with his family to Oklahoma over the Trail of Tears. Chief Wilson N. Jones had little formal education, but believed strongly that education would help his tribe.

In 1952, the Bureau of Indian Affairs ceased funding academic and vocational activities at most Indian boarding schools. Jones Academy students began attending the Hartshorne Public Schools. Wheelock Academy, a non-reservation girls’ boarding school near Millerton in McCurtain County, was closed in 1955 after having been in operation since 1839. Approximately fifty-five girls transferred to Jones Academy. For the first time since its beginning in 1891, Jones Academy became a co-educational boarding dormitory.

With the Indian Self Determination and Education Act (1972) and further legislation, the Choctaw Nation became the first American Indian tribe to operate a tribally controlled grant school. Known as a peripheral dormitory school, Jones Academy students are still part of the Hartshorne School District.