Early life and education Born in
Beattie, Kansas, in 1890, Angie Debo moved with her parents, Edward P. and Lina E. in a covered wagon to the
Oklahoma Territory when she was nine years old.
Education and early career She soon went on to the
University of Oklahoma, where she earned an A.B. degree in history in 1918. She taught history at
Enid High School for four years before taking time to study at the
University of Chicago, where she earned a master's degree in international relations in 1924. Her master's thesis (co-authored with her thesis supervisor
J. Fred Rippy) was published in 1924 as part of the
Smith College Studies in History, under the title
The Historical Background of the American Policy of Isolationism. The historian
Manfred Jonas has written that this was the first "scholarly literature" on the subject of American
isolationism. Despite this early success, Debo said that she found it difficult to obtain a teaching position because most college history departments at the time would not consider hiring a woman. Nevertheless, from 1924 until 1933, she taught at
West Texas State Teachers College in
Canyon, Texas, and was curator of its
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, while working towards a PhD in history at the University of Oklahoma, which she received in 1933. It received the
John H. Dunning Prize of the
American Historical Association.
University of Oklahoma Press director Savoie Lottinville later described this book as a "pioneering effort" in Native American history that gave the effect of "seeing events from inside the tribe, rather than from a purely Anglo-American perspective."
And Still the Waters Run Debo's next book was more controversial. Completed in 1936,
And Still the Waters Run detailed how, after their forced
removal from the southeastern United States, the
Five Civilized Tribes were systematically deprived in Indian Territory of the lands and resources granted to them by federal treaty. Debo wrote that these treaties were supposed to protect the tribal lands "as long as the waters run, as long as the grass grows"; but, after the 1887
Dawes Act enacted a policy of private ownership that was eventually forced on the tribes, the system was manipulated by whites to swindle the Indians out of their property. In the words of historian Ellen Fitzpatrick, Debo's book "advanced a crushing analysis of the corruption, moral depravity, and criminal activity that underlay white administration and execution of the allotment policy." Debo's charges were controversial; and many of the actors were still alive. The book's conclusions were strongly resisted by some parties. But, in her later years she received increasing acclaim and recognition. Her work was seen as a rebuttal to the
Frontier Thesis of
Frederick Jackson Turner, presenting a history of westward expansion based not on the ideal of
manifest destiny but on the exploitation of the Native Americans. She was a lifelong
Democrat, and said
Henry Bellmon was the only Republican ever to receive her vote. Debo served on the board of directors of the Association on American Indian Affairs, and of the Oklahoma chapter of the
American Civil Liberties Union. She also continued to publish extensively. She wrote one novel,
Prairie City, the Story of an American Community (1944), based on the history of her hometown Marshall. She finished her last history book,
Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place, at the age of 85, and it was first published by University of Oklahoma Press in 1976. It has been reissued in new editions. ==Honors and legacy==