Angie Debo: An Unlikely Scholar and Educator of Indian History and Culture

Angie Debo, educator and historian, wrote thirteen scholarly books, which included material representative of the American Indian experience. In one of her later books, "A History of the Indians of the United States," first published in 1951, she wrote that the story of the American Indian shows a "remarkable record of survival … through centuries of encroachment by a more numerous and aggressive race" (1970, 422). The comment might seem surprising to those who know that she was a doctoral student of Edward Everett Dale, American History Professor at the University of Oklahoma--1914-1952, and noted supporter of Turner's Frontier Thesis. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into her complex relationship with her mentor, Dale. She moved away from his vision of history to one that included the use of ethnological sources and studying history of American Indians, which was generally excluded from historical accounts. This led Debo to her role as one of the first woman scholars, ethno-historians, and chroniclers of the American Indian experience in the West. However, her path was not the traditional one for an educator with a Ph. D. in History.