While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
"It is said that the Athenians erected a statue to Ęsop, (564
B. C.), who was born a slave; or as Phaedrus phrases it:
"They placed the slave upon an eternal pedestal,"
"Sir, for what the enfranchised slaves did for the cause of constitutional
liberty in this country, the American people should imitate the Athenians and,
by training the slave for usefulness, place him upon an eternal pedestal. Their
conduct has been beyond all praise.
"They have been patient and docile; they have been loyal to their masters, to
the country, and to those with whom they are associated; but, as I said before,
no other people ever endured patiently such injustice and wrong. Despotism makes
nihilists; tyranny makes socialists and communists; and injustice is the great
manufacturer of dynamite. The thief robs himself; the adulterer pollutes
himself; and the murderer inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which
slays his victim.
"If my voice can reach this proscribed and unfortunate class, I appeal to them
to continue, as they have begun, to endure to the end; and thus to commend
themselves to the favorable judgment of mankind; and to rely for their safety
upon the ultimate appeal to the conscience of the human race." John J. Ingalls,
U. S. Senate, 1890.
"The vineyard which thy right hand hath
planted."
"Who hath despised the day of small things?"
As the preaching of the
gospel and the organization of a Church
preceded the establishment of the school,
the following facts in regard to the Church
are first noted.
The Oak Hill Presbyterian
Church
The Oak Hill Presbyterian Church was
organized about June 29, 1869, with six
members, namely, Henry Crittenden, who was
ordained an elder, Teena Crittenden, his
wife, J. Ross Shoals and his wife Hettie
Shoals, Emily Harris and Reindeer Clark.
The services at first were held in the home
and later in an arbor at the home of Henry
Crittenden, one mile east of the present
town of Valliant, and now known as the home
of James and Johnson Shoals. After a few
years the place of meeting was transferred
to an arbor about two miles southwest of
Crittenden's, and two years later, 1878, to
the Oak Hill schoolhouse, a frame building
erected that year on the main east and west
road north of Red river. It was located on
the southwest quarter of section 27, near
the site on which Valliant was located in
1902. It is reported, that Henry Crittenden
was the principal contributor towards the
erection of this building. His cash income
though meager was greater than others and he
gave freely in order that a suitable place
might be provided both for public worship
and a day school for the neighborhood.
Parson Charles W. Stewart of Doaksville, a
representative of the last generation of
those who were slaves to the Indians, was
the minister in charge from the time of
organization until the spring of 1893, when
he retired from the ministry. He was
succeeded at Oak Hill by Rev. Edward G.
Haymaker, the superintendent of the academy,
who continued a period of eleven years. He
was succeeded by Rev. R. E. Flickinger,
whose pastorate of nearly eight years was
eventfully ended at the dedication of the
new colored Presbyterian Church at Garvin,
on October 3, 1912. Rev. William H. Carroll,
relinquishing his work on that same day as
the first resident pastor of the Garvin
Church became the immediate successor at Oak
Hill.
Those who served as elders of the Oak Hill
Church and are now dead were Henry
Crittenden, J. Ross Shoals, Robert Hall,
Jack A. Thomas and Samuel A. Folsom. The
elders in 1912 are James R. Crabtree, Matt
Brown and Solomon H. Buchanan.
In 1912 a site for a new chapel, intended
only for the uses of the local congregation,
was purchased in a suburb on the west side
of Valliant. The trustees chosen at this
time were Mitchell S. Stewart, formerly an
elder, Matt Brown and James R. Crabtree.
They were duly authorized to incorporate and
manage the erection of the new Church
building.
The Native Oak Hill
School
The Negroes who were slaves of the Indians,
about the year 1880 were enrolled and
adopted as citizens, by the tribes to which
they respectively belonged, and they then
became entitled to a small part of their
public school funds. The amount accorded the
Choctaw Freedmen was about one dollar a year
for a pupil that was enrolled as attending
school. This made possible the employment of
a teacher for a short term of three months
in the vicinity of a few villages, where a
large enrollment could be secured, but left
unsupplied the greater number living in the
sparsely settled neighborhoods.
Our Board of Missions for
Freedmen, ever since its organization, has
made it the duty of every negro minister
commissioned by it, to maintain a school in
their respective chapels several months each
year, in order that the children of the
community might have an opportunity to learn
to read the Bible.
The first native teacher in the Oak Hill
congregation was J. Ross Shoals, one of the
elders of the Church, who had a large family
and principally of boys. His work was that
of a Bible reader or Sunday school teacher.
About the year 1876 he began to hold
meetings in the south arbor on Sabbath
afternoons for the purpose of teaching both
old and young to read the Bible with him.
Nathan Mattison succeeded him the next year
at the same place as a Sabbath school
teacher.
In 1878, George M. Dallas, a carpenter, was
employed to build a small frame school house
on the southwest quarter of section 27, and
after its completion he taught that year the
first term of week day school among the
colored people of that section. Others that
succeeded Dallas, as teachers in this frame
school house, were Mary Rounds, Henry
Williams and Lee Bibbs.
Old Log House
In 1884, Henry Williams transferred the day
school to the "old log house" on the
northeast quarter of section 29, a mile and
a half northwest of the school house. The
motive for this change was the fact there
was no supply of good water near the school
house, while at the new location there was a
good well and a large vacant building
available for use.
Robin Clark, its owner and last occupant was
an active member of the Oak Hill Church.
After occupying this building one or two
years he moved to another one near Red river
and generously tendered the free use of this
one for the Oak Hill School. In 1885 Henry
Friarson, another native teacher, taught the
school in this same "old log house."
All of these native teachers
did the best they could, but deeply felt
their insufficiency for the task laid on
them, by the pressure of an urgent
necessity. All had personal knowledge of the
existence and unusual privileges afforded
the children and youth of the Choctaws at
Wheelock and Spencer Academies. It was also
easy for them to see that as farmers they
succeeded as well in securing good results
from the cultivation of the soil as many of
their Choctaw neighbors, and this fact
tended to increase their desire to have a
"fair chance" and equal share in the matter
of educational privileges for their
children.
The Oak Hill Church and school happened to
be near the center of the widely scattered
group of a half dozen Churches that formed
the monthly circuit of Parson Charles W.
Stewart. All who were interested in securing
a good mission school approved this location
as the most convenient for all of them, and,
heartily uniting in an appeal for one,
pledged their united support of it, when it
should be established.
Appeal For Oak Hill
The appeal of the Choctaw Freedmen was
presented to the Presbyterian Board of
Missions for Freedmen by Rev. Alexander Reid
and Rev. John Edwards, the missionaries in
charge of the Indian work at Spencer and
Wheelock Academies, respectively.
In the early days many of the old Negroes
were located near these educational
institutions and they were sometimes sent by
their masters to work for the missionaries.
These men living in their midst had
opportunity to witness their extreme
poverty, utter ignorance and general
degradation. They also heard their personal
appeals for the light of knowledge and Bible
truth. Their sympathetic interest was
awakened and began to manifest itself
towards them.
They were occasionally accorded the
privilege of attending religious services,
and at Doaksville, during the ministry of
Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, were permitted to hold
occasional Sabbath afternoon meetings in the
Choctaw Church. Primers, catechisms and
testaments were sometimes presented to them
and in this way a few of them learned to
read the Bible. The kindly interest of these
missionaries won their esteem and confidence
and awakened in many of them an abiding love
and affection for the Presbyterian Church.
It is related that when one of them was
asked to unite with another Church because
it was "more free" he replied, "You are too
free for me, I need a stricter Church. I
believe in staying by the old missionaries.
They were our friends when we were slaves.
They treated us well and did us good, and I
mean to stay by their Church as long as I
live."
Slavery Among Indians
The state of religion among all of the
people, both Indians and Negroes, was low,
"very low". One of the missionaries
described that of the Negroes as being like
that of the Samaritans. "They fear the Lord
and serve their own gods. As their fathers
did, so do they. Their condition is bad,
morally and religiously."
It could not easily have been otherwise. The
tendency of slavery, under the most
favorable conditions has always been in the
direction of a low standard of morals and
life. Slavery to untutored Indians, in a
sparsely settled timber country, suggests
the most deplorable condition imaginable.
Such a slave lacking the example of
intelligence and uprightness, often common
among white masters, was subjected to
generations of training in every phase of
depravity and had no incentive whatever to
live a better life.
When, however, these slaves of the Indians
were accorded their freedom and became
entitled to a part of the public school fund
of the Choctaws, they manifested an earnest
desire to have ministers and teachers sent
them, that they might have Churches and
schools of their own.
Their great need was a boarding school where
the boys and girls especially those in the
remote and neglected rural districts, could
be taken from their homes and trained under
the personal supervision of Christian
teachers, to a higher standard of living,
and, some at least, become fitted to serve
as teachers of their own people.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial
Academy, 1914, Robert Elliott Flickinger
