The Presbyterian Historical Society's (PHS) Reparative Description Committee's previous work on the Tucson Indian Training School Records (RG 103) informed the selection of the Dwight Indian Training School Records (RG 553) and the American Indian Institute Records (RG 555) as high priority archival processing projects. Additionally, PHS's 2023 collaboration with First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma members to digitize materials held by the Dwight Mission Board prioritized the processing of these collections. While RG 553 and RG 555 are small in size (2 cubic feet [5 boxes] and 1.30 cubic feet [3 boxes], respectively), processing these collections aligns with the work of the Native American Coordinating Council and with former PC(USA) Stated Clerk Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II's Call to Action "urging mid councils and congregations to take steps to recognize failure by the U.S. to uphold the rights, traditions and livelihood of Native Americans, including failures by Protestant denominations."
In 2023, PHS staff, through connections with First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa's History and Archives Committee, arranged to borrow, digitize, and return Dwight Indian Training School materials held by the Dwight Mission Board. These materials included a scrapbook/photograph album, letterpress copybook volumes of correspondence and financial records, and other items. The digital images and files were then uploaded to PHS's digital library Pearl. This collaborative digitization project led PHS staff to revisit our own Dwight Indian Training School records, a small set of mainly student files that PHS obtained in a 1987 accession, and to fully process and inventory the records.
During processing, staff discovered that the accession actually consisted of records from two different schools: the Dwight Indian Training School (Marble, Oklahoma) and the American Indian Institute (Wichita, Kansas). Staff decided to process these records as two different collections.
Dwight Indian Training School Records (RG 553):
In 1820, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) missionaries established the Dwight Mission on Illinois Bayou (near Russellville, in present-day Arkansas), named after Reverend Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, to convert and culturally assimilate the Cherokee people, specifically the Western Cherokees. The mission school first opened in 1822, with two to three Cherokee students enrolled. In 1829, the Dwight Mission was reestablished in Indian Territory (near present-day Marble City, Oklahoma), preceding the United States federal government's forced removal and displacement of the Cherokee people from their lands east of the Mississippi (the Trail of Tears). At the new mission site, missionaries erected several log houses to use for a school and for staff housing, and the mission school reopened in 1830. Mission branches were established near Sallisaw Creek (near present-day Stilwell, Oklahoma) and near the mouth of the Barren Fork River, the latter being called Park Hill. Around 1836, missionary Samuel A. Worcester established a printing press at Park Hill to translate and print the Bible and hymns into the Cherokee language. The ABCFM discontinued the Dwight Mission in 1860. Several buildings on the mission site were burned during the Civil War, and by 1862 the property was abandoned. In the early 1880s, the mission school was rebuilt and reestablished as a boarding facility for Cherokee girls by the Cherokee National Council, with funding from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.'s (PCUSA) Women's Board of Home Missions. In 1900, the school became a boarding school for both boys and girls, with Frederick L. Schaub as mission superintendent. John M. Robe succeeded Schaub as superintendent around 1912. While Cherokee and Choctaw students made up most of the student population, students from other Indigenous tribes attended as well. In January 1918, thirteen Indigenous students died as a result of a fire in the boys' dormitory. The Board of National Missions (BNM) of the PCUSA closed the school in 1948, and in 1950, the property was purchased by the PCUSA and became the Dwight Mission Camp and Conference Center. In June 2021, the original property was transferred to and reclaimed by the Cherokee Nation, with the Cherokee Nation also purchasing additional land that had been added to the mission over the years.
The collection (RG 553) primarily contains correspondence, financial records, letterpress copybooks, photographs, a scrapbook, student records, student information cards, and other records created and compiled by Dwight Indian Training School administrators and staff during the school's operation, chiefly during the early to mid-twentieth century. The records are organized in two series:
The Dwight Indian Training School Records (Physical Materials) series, circa 1910-1964, bulk 1938-1948, chiefly contains student files and student information cards. Some student files are more robust and complete than others, and they can include: applications, correspondence, medical records, photographs (usually headshots or portraits of students), report cards, transcripts and transcript requests, and other educational and student records. Applications often include names of parents, tribal names/designations, and blood quantum information (called the "Degree of Indian blood" information field on the applications). Student information cards contain similar information to what is found on applications in the student files, including a "Degree of Indian blood" information field. Stored separately from the aforementioned materials are some additional medical and student records, inventories/property appraisals, and a photograph album.
The Dwight Indian Training School Records (Digitized Materials) series, 1900-1924, 1989, consists of digitized materials, including correspondence, financial records (chiefly vouchers), letterpress copybooks, photographs, and a scrapbook. PHS digitized these materials at the request of First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Dwight Mission Board. After digitization, the original materials were returned to First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa. The letterpress copybooks were created and compiled by Frederick Lewis Schaub, who was superintendent of the Dwight Mission. The scrapbook includes correspondence and a report pertaining to a 1918 fire in the boys' dormitory that resulted in the deaths of thirteen Indigenous students at the school.
American Indian Institute Records (RG 555):
In 1915, Presbyterian minister Henry Roe Cloud (circa 1884-1950) founded the Roe Indian Institute, a college preparatory and Christian education/leadership high school for Native American/Indigenous boys and young men, in Wichita, Kansas. Cloud was born on the Winnebago Reservation (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska). He learned English while at the United States government-run Genoa Indian School (Nance County, Nebraska) and converted to Christianity at the Winnebago Reservation/Industrial School (Macy, Nebraska). He went on to attend the Santee Normal Training School, then entered Yale University in 1906, graduating in 1910 (B.A.) and 1914 (M.A.). He was the first Indigenous person to graduate from Yale. He became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1913. Cloud and his adoptive parents, Reverend Walter C. Roe and Mary Wickham Roe, had been discussing plans to create the Roe Indian Institute since around 1910. Upon the school's opening in 1915, it was the only Indigenous-run high school in the United States. The school's first graduate was Harry Coons in 1919. Around 1920 or 1921, the school changed its name to the American Indian Institute (AII). In 1927, Cloud began the process of transferring administration of the school, its financing, and its property to the PCUSA's BNM Division of Schools and Hospitals. Cloud suggested a transition period of 3 years, with the school's Board of Trustees serving as an advisory group to the BNM. The school's last class graduated in 1937.
The collection (RG 555) contains correspondence, financial records, student records, and other materials created and compiled by American Indian Institute administrators and staff during the school's operation. Student files comprise the bulk of the collection. Some student files are more robust and complete than others, and they can include: applications, correspondence, financial records (chiefly receipts and vouchers), report cards, semester/term reports, transcripts and transcript requests, and other educational and student records. Applications often include names of parents, tribal names/designations, blood quantum information (called the "Proportional part Indian blood" information field on applications), and medical information. Stored separately from the student files are some assorted records, including a student register, lists of graduates, and an account book/ledger. There are also some notes/writings in an Indigenous language, possibly the Ho-Chunk language.
The collection guide for the Dwight Indian Training School records can be accessed here, and the collection guide for the American Indian Institute Records can be accessed here. Read more about the contents of these records collections in these collection guides.
You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.
