Dr. Angie Debo serving as the librarian of maps at the Oklahoma A&M Library. 1952. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

Dr. Angie Debo was a well-known historian who contributed new methodologies and understandings of the Five Tribes of Oklahoma. Originally from Kansas, the Debo family moved to Marshall, Oklahoma when Debo was just nine years old. Following her passion for education and knowledge, she received a B.A. in history from the University of Oklahoma (OU), an M.A. in history from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in history from OU. Debo published more than a dozen books and numerous articles in which she challenged the Euro-American lens and considered the consequences of Euro-American settlement for Native people.

Dr. Angie Debo. 1985. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

Debo's first major work was her dissertation in 1934, which the OU Press published as The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. In the book, she traces Choctaw history from forced removal to the close of the nineteenth century. Debo describes the negative effects of the American Civil War on the Choctaw Nation, offering one of the first published histories which considered Native American perspectives. 

Dr. Angie Debo with students. Courtesy of Oklahoma Hall of Fame Archives.

In 1940, Debo published And Still the Waters Run, detailing the removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole peoples in the 1830s through the early twentieth century when the state of Oklahoma took back the land it had promised to those Native nations. Debo developed new methods of history, combining traditional archival research with a reading of anthropology and the use of oral histories, helping to establish the genre of ethnohistory. She is best recognized for her works, which center around Native American perspectives and experiences.