Gannon Kazi
Fall 2023
When I started this paper, I was compelled to determine a response to the following question: “Who is Angie Debo?” But as time went on, this seemingly easy question proved difficult to answer. Debo was a historian, sure, but the impact and meaning of her work was questionable. She fought hard for indigenous people’s rights yet did so while celebrating those who took their land away. And despite the deluge of documents relating to Debo as a writer, I struggled to find any detailed mention of her personal life besides diaries and the occasional anecdote.
As I explored this matter further, I discovered something fascinating: other researchers have attempted the same journey as I in trying to summarize Debo’s life, and nobody has reached a consensus. Some like Dr. Gloria Valencia-Weber characterize Dr. Debo as a trailblazing activist for Native Americans, a heroine far ahead of her time (“Angie Debo, History Scholar: Still Growing Beyond Her Roots in Oklahoma,” from Literary Landmark Dedication in Angie Debo Collection). Others refer to her as a patriot who chronicled the time of pioneers, a historical group well-known for mistreating indigenous peoples. And others still, such as N. Scott Momaday, describe her as nothing special (“When the West was won and a civilization was lost,” 46-47, March 7, 1971); to some, she was a mediocre writer who had little impact. When faced with the competing pieces of information on Dr. Debo, esteemed historian Patricia Nelson Limerick had this to say:
This is a paradox…While a comparison to Jekyll and Hyde would certainly overstate the case, there do seem to be two public-record Angie Debos: Angie Debo #1, the justly famous, often-reprinted, often-cited author, who wrote critically and openly about the cruel, manipulative process of dispossession that made the modern state of Oklahoma possible, and Angie Debo #2, the much less famous, much less reprinted, much less cited author, who wrote cheerfully about pioneer courage and determination and who made and retained an easy peace with the frontier history associated with Frederick Jackson Turner. (“Land, Justice, and Angie Debo: Telling the Truth To—and About—Your Neighbors” 262-263)
Limerick’s paper on Dr. Angie Debo focused on her professional life, but I am taking things a step further: a deep dive into the inner workings of Angie Debo not just as a writer but a person. Those covering Debo’s life, no matter what they think of her professionally, always imply a sense of respect and admiration for her as an individual; this is evident in the most scathing of reviews (Momaday, 1971). But this admiration goes beyond her work as a historian, far beyond; it is something deeper. And so, nearly 35 years after her passing, it is time to reexamine who this figure is, and why she has this hold on the state of Oklahoma. It is time to answer the question, “Who is Angie Debo?”
Angie Elbertha Debo was born on January 30, 1890, in Beattie, Kansas, on the day of the frontier’s closing (Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:04:34). A noted historian and author, her work has had an impact in a variety of disciplines (“Angie Debo: History Scholar”). During her 98-year-long life, a love to educate and for education itself predominated her work. This career spanned decades, covering everything from pioneers and oil to Native Americans and rural towns (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:05:54). Although she is perhaps most celebrated at Oklahoma State University today, her alma mater was the University of Oklahoma, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree and doctorate (“Angie Debo: History Scholar,” “Angie Debo Chronology” from the Angie Debo Collection at the Oklahoma State University Library).
While Dr. Debo obtained most of her degrees from the University of Oklahoma and had OU publish many of her works, she had an equally long and pleasant history with Oklahoma State University. In 1946 she taught summer school at OSU, and during the 1957-1958 academic year she taught Oklahoma History to students there. She also curated maps for the university, attended banquets with faculty members, and in the final years of her life was interviewed by Oklahoma State University staff (“Angie Debo Chronology,” and January 20, 1982, Diary Entry from Angie Debo Collection). Upon her passing, she bequeathed all her files to OSU (“Angie Debo in Her Own Words” Editor’s Note from Angie Debo Collection). What is at first strange about Debo’s loyalty to OSU is that her alma mater was OU, and she worked with that institution for many years. OU published most of her books, such as The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic, The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians, Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State,and Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place (A History of the Indians of the United States iv); this is quite a large body of work. So, why did Debo favor OSU over OU? This topic could be a research paper of its own, certainly. However, I will limit my discussion to the topics themselves and my perspective on which one holds the most merit for the sake of this paper. At first glance two possible reasons explain such reverence: either Debo had more resources available for her projects at OSU and wanted to give back to their database, or Debo felt OU’s profits from publishing her works were equal to that of her bequeathment to OSU. I believe both hypotheses carry some accuracy, but upon conducting further research I now see a third possibility.
A third hypothesis, somewhat speculatory but with much circumstantial support, is that Debo felt betrayed by the University of Oklahoma. Debo was unable to publish And Still the Waters Run upon its completion in 1936 because a fellow of high status working with OU found the book “dangerous” (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:33:30). And although they would ultimately publish the 1984 and 1986 reprintings of the book, Princeton University first made the book available in 1940, not OU (And Still the Waters Run edition notice). Since finding and spreading the truth was the paramount value of Debo’s life and career, the wholesale refusal to publish the manuscript by a superior proved an unforgettable insult. It is true Debo had friends from both Norman and Stillwater and carried no ill will towards either institution (July 17, 1970, and June 10, 1987, Diary Entries from Collection). And even in the final years of her life (when by that point she “lost much in…memory of names of people and technical terms” (January 18, 1986, Diary Entry), she remembered the exact class and building at OU where she met a close friend. But while she treasured her time with these universities greatly, her distrust of unsavory faculty members remained. In the documentary Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo, which was filmed during Dr. Debo’s final years and features interviews with her, she is still outraged by what occurred at OU. She eloquently summarizes her superior’s remarks as follows: “So [in his mind], I violated history, by telling the truth” (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:34:09). If such people found the mere telling of history a violation of it, imagine what would happen if they got their hands on Dr. Debo’s research files. And so, Debo bequeathed her files to OSU to protect and preserve the truth about Oklahoma and Native Americans.
Those files had become the basis of Dr. Debo’s career, a prolific output of nine books on the history of Native Americans, whom were her main subject of work (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:42:40). Most notably among these is And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes, considered by many to be Debo’s best written book. Dr. Debo herself was fonder of 1970’s A History of the Indians of the United States, which she considered to be her most impactful (“Angie Debo in Her Own Words” p. 93 from Collection), but while larger in scope it is much less cohesive. While Debo’s work is not about her, she often references herself and her research in writing to provide a framework that establishes her work’s legitimacy. Also worth noting is Debo’s narration, which functions as not merely a recounting of history but her perspective on it (as is common with difficult topics like forced relocation and genocide). The Angie Debo present in her literature is a curious one: Debo envisions herself as a sort of spokeswoman for Native Americans, someone to be the voice for a group whose concerns were otherwise ignored; to her credit she certainly does her part. A perhaps unexpected case of this comes from the “Thirty-two Years After” section of the preface to 1972-and-beyond reprintings of And Still the Waters Run. Here is an excerpt from this supplement:
By the time of my survey [for this book] strawberry-raising had been taken up by white growers around Stilwell, and it had become an important Oklahoma industry. But the local banker estimated that over half of the proceeds went to Indians. Although some of this no doubt was wages paid to Indian pickers by white growers, [concerned whites like] Mr. Kinnard had 150 [Native] families growing berries and expected to have 300 the next year. All these ventures had been started with small loans, usually about $500. (And Still the Waters Run,1986, xvii)
During the 19-page section, Debo details how farming cooperatives among tribal citizens provided them some financial recovery following the loss of land discussed in And Still the Waters Run; Debo briefly addressed farming in the final pages of her book as a financial respite for then-contemporary indigenous populations in the United States, but apparently in 1972 she felt the improving agricultural industry was an important enough development to warrant an update.
But while Debo certainly cares for the well-being of Native Americans, she is at moments a product of her time. As early as page seven of And Still the Waters Run, Debo had this to say about the five tribes’ forced conversion to Christianity: “The Creeks and Seminoles were conservative, but the other three tribes were eagerly receptive of any custom which they considered superior to their own…upon the whole the new religion was readily and gladly accepted” (And Still the Waters Run 7). What? This of course does not track nowadays; within Angie Debo’s own lifetime, historians began rejecting the concept of Native Americans being passive ‘acceptors’ of European culture and Christianity. James P. Ronda, a once-faculty member at Youngstown State University’s Department of History, summarized that chapter of American History as follows:
Native Americans reacted to missionary activity in a wide variety of ways, each of which deserves our attention if we are to understand the role of the mission in culture contact and change. Some Indians accepted the new religion and the new life-patterns it commanded. Others incorporated certain Christian elements into their lives while rejecting the essence of the white man’s message. Most native Americans reaffirmed their traditional beliefs and strenuously resisted Christianity. (“We Are Well As We Are” 67)
While Ronda uses his paper to detail missionaries’ accounts of conversion attempts of Native Americans in colonial and pre-colonial America, he demonstrates a nascent consensus among historians that indigenous peoples in the United States were equal as humans and very aware of the world around them, certainly not ‘mystical’ relics and inferior creatures “bewildered and disheartened” by settlers (And Still the Waters Run 7, 126). Although one can argue Debo does not believe in the inferiority doctrine at times this bias is present in her other works (A History of the Indians of the United States 3-4, 5, 20), and distracts from her research. While Debo is certainly one of the better authors of her time to include such erroneous thinking, it is a noteworthy and commonplace shortcoming present in her and her fellow historiographers’ writing.
Debo’s perspective on the mistreatment of Native Americans is particularly interesting given her background: while not Native American herself she is credited with bringing attention to the then-contemporary mistreatment of Native people in the first place. Debo’s perspective becomes more transparent upon watching Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo, a documentary chronicling her life’s work. Debo grew up in a time when mere awareness for indigenous peoples was radical. The education system both in Oklahoma and nationwide made no mention of Native Americans’ suffering at the hands of White settlers (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:10:00). And because of the decades-long coverup effort of the allotment system by government officials, every single bit of research or support for Debo’s work was entirely original; she was almost certainly the first to uncover their efforts and live to tell the tale. What some may see as terribly boring and cruel, technical citation work is a body of research that Debo risked her life for and had no choice but to reference every new detail she uncovered in her histories. She relentlessly compiled personal records and files to obtain the information many can encounter in seconds online at present. “I’d spend months in Washington. I would go to the basement of the old [Department of the] Interior building, and there were bundles tied in red tape—truly, it’s red tape! And I would untie those bundles, you know, and I would take notes” (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:19:53). What is perhaps the most agonizing part of Debo’s work to imagine is the absence of time-saving measures in copying; they had to be created first. When writing her first two books, “I didn’t have the advantage of copying machines, and so I had to take all my notes by hand. And they hadn’t even invented ballpoint pens, so I had to use a fountain pen” (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:38:43). She made things happen; she didn’t wait on someone to tell her she could. This is why her work is so treasured by OSU, and her staggering scale of research and attention to detail is unfailingly evident inher oeuvre.
There are a lot of fascinating and seemingly contradictory facets of her personality which make one appreciative of Angie Debo. Debo grasped that she was on the verge of a new era, but she also held tightly to tradition and custom. She spent her life trying to find and prove an ultimate truth about Native Americans and settlers, but her work was ultimately celebrated because her personality is present in it, which inherently obscures or distorts the truth. Knowing that she was at the end of her life, Debo attempted to preserve her life and documents for all to see. What she could not have predicted was that just after her death, the technology of the digital age made learning about her more difficult (“The digital” from The Silence of the Archive). As future generations continued to organize and reorganize, design and redesign, locate and relocate information about Dr. Debo to make a definitive source for those fascinated by her, she was in effect split into a multitude of distinct forms forever separated from one another, like a glass that had broken to the point its pieces could not be perfectly placed back together (“The Archive Function: A Feminist Critic’s Lost Thesis on the Archive”). The researcher had become the research. And in an eldritch fashion her story was now, is now, immortal but indiscernible to passers-by, an amalgam of every perspective, photograph, paper and proponent related to her (“Epilogue” from Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive).
As of writing this paper, Debo is no longer alone in her school of thought; every day, new facts are uncovered about other horrific scandals in Oklahoma, such as the Tulsa Race Massacre or the Reign of Terror. Movies, books, and television shows about and from the perspective Native Americans are not only consumed by the tribes depicted therein but many different peoples, earning nationwide and even international acclaim. It might be naïve to predict that bias or malice towards Native Americans will disappear forever, but in the present the public is certainly more open-minded about learning about their cultures and histories than ever before. Debo would be proud.
But where is Debo in this conversation? In a time and place where so many people share Debo’s thinking, her name has been forgotten. Does she still matter, now that her revolutionary views and research have been taken for granted? If she does, in what respects? Why should people utter her name ever again, beyond sentimentality for her ways?
When reflecting on Debo’s legacy, I am reminded of a 1937 short story called “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét. In this cryptic apocalypse tale, people living in America following the United States’ collapse (and presumably the larger society it is a part of) are left with monuments and ruins they no longer understand. But while the initial purpose of these structures is long forgotten, the humanity behind them remains. It is by no means a great read; ironically, it is full of the “mystical” Native American stereotypes I rejected earlier in this paper, and it is at times ramshackle in its execution (though this may be the author’s way of adding apocalyptic imagery to his writing). It is also science fiction, which is disconnected from the nonfiction Dr. Debo made a career of. But it does raise some important questions regarding legacies and how they change over time. Near the end of the story, the narrator says the following upon seeing a derelict Lincoln Memorial:
Then I saw the dead god. He was sitting in his chair, by the window, in a room I had not entered before and, for the first moment, I thought that he was alive. Then I saw the skin on the back of his hand—it was like dry leather. The room was shut, hot and dry—no doubt that had kept him as he was. At first I was afraid to approach him—then the fear left me. He was sitting looking out over the city—he was dressed in the clothes of the gods. His age was neither young nor old—I could not tell his age. But there was wisdom in his face and great sadness. You could see that he would have not run away. He had sat at his window, watching his city die—then he himself had died. But it is better to lose one’s life than one’s spirit—and you could see from the face that his spirit had not been lost. I knew, that, if I touched him, he would fall into dust—and yet, there was something unconquered in the face. (“By the Waters of Babylon” 9)
Benét uses this fictional account to argue his message that the essence of the American spirit and the people who shape it is universal, and though its minutiae are lost over generations its values remain. This same logic can be applied to individuals like Debo, who may be left out of history books but are among their authors. As Angie Debo the person is forgotten, Angie Debo’s values persist.
In a context influenced by but ultimately separated from the past that created it, who is Angie Debo to its citizens? Who is Angie Debo to us? Angie Debo is the story that Native Americans are not an extinct people felled by stupidity, but erudite survivors of centuries-long massacres, dispossessions, and assimilation (Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo 00:40:32). Angie Debo is the determination to fulfill one’s duty to society at large, no matter how arduous that may seem (00:54:00, 00:55:06). Angie Debo is a love for the place you were born in, not despite its faults but because of them (00:05:42-00:06:26). And Angie Debo is the decision to not be dissuaded by the people that count on you, but empowered (00:44:10). That is who Angie Debo is, and that is what lives on today.
Works Cited
Angie Debo Collection. Archives and Special Collections, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, debo.library.okstate.edu.
“Debo, Angie Elbertha.” Oklahoma Historical Society, http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entryname=ANGIE%20ELBERTHA%20DEBO. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Debo, Angie. A History of the Indians of the United States. University of Oklahoma Press, 1970.
Debo, Angie. And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes. 1940. Princeton University Press, 1986.
Eichhorn, Kate. “The Archive Function: A Feminist Critic’s Lost Thesis on the Archive.” Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 30, no. 83, 2015, web-s-ebscohost-com.argo.library.okstate.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=cf699551-23c9-48ff-a0e6-ed85d5e524bb%40redis. EBSCOhost. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Fuentes, Marisa J. “Epilogue.” Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, www-jstor-org.argo.library.okstate.edu/stable/j.ctt1c5chbv. JSTOR. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo. Directed by Martha Sandlin, Public Broadcasting Service, 1988.
Limerick, Patricia Nelson. “Land, Justice, and Angie Debo: Telling the Truth To—and About—Your Neighbors.” Great Plains Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 4, 2001, www-jstor-org.argo.library.okstate.edu/stable/23532948?sid=primo. JSTOR. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Momaday, Navarre Scott. “When the West Was Won and a Civilization Was Lost.” The New York Times, vol. 120, no. 41,315, 7 Mar. 1971, http://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/07/archives/a-history-of-the-indians-of-the-united-states-by-angie-debo.html?searchResultPosition=8. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Ronda, James P. “‘We Are Well as We Are’: An Indian Critique of Seventeenth-Century Christian Missions.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1, Jan. 1977, pp. 66–82, www-jstor-org.argo.library.okstate.edu/stable/1922626?sid=primo&seq=1. JSTOR. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Sulzberger, Cyrus Leo. “The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic.” The New York Times, vol. 83, no. 27,973, 26 Aug. 1934, http://www.nytimes.com/1934/08/26/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-choctaw-indian-republic-the-rise-and-fall.html?searchResultPosition=1. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
Thomas, David. “The digital.” The Silence of the Archive, edited by David Thomas et al., London Facet Publishing, 2017, pp. 65-100. Cambridge Core, www-cambridge-org.argo.library.okstate.edu/core/books/silence-of-the-archive/B61154B9DA2665E57EE6EC684996D3A2. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
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