Chapter 3: The Image of Women Teachers in Indian Territory in the Nineteenth Century

In 1856, Mary Coombs Greenleaf wrote a confidential letter to her minister asking this question: “What should you think of my offering myself to the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian church as a teacher, or assistant teacher, at some one of their stations among the Indians of our own country? Would you think it the most absurd idea that ever entered my head?” Mary sought to take her place among the many frontier teachers who preceded her. However, her destination—Indian Territory—was distinctive from previous American frontiers in that it was the geographical solution to a long record of Indian eradication policy. Soon after the passage of the Indian Removal Act under Andrew Jackson, the Choctaw Nation was the first nation to be relocated into the Territory. The Seminole were then removed in 1832, followed later by the Creek tribe. The Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 established the boundaries of the Territory and regulated trade with the tribes, after which the Cherokee took the forced inarch that came to be known as The Trail of Tears. The Chickasaw Nation soon followed in 1837. Mary Greenleaf was fifty-six years old, having just lost her mother, and although older than many, she was similar to those women pioneer teachers whose character and personality have been portrayed in the literature and art of the West. Paul Nesbit captures their essence in these lines from his poem “Oklahoma’s Woman Pioneer”: