Wheelock

Oklahoma · USA · Execution site

The stories told about this place are inventions. What actually happened at Choctaw boarding schools is documented, and it is worse than the legend.

Wheelock, west of Idabel in Oklahoma, was a Choctaw mission and academy, one of the first schools in what was then Indian Territory, founded in the 1830s after removal.

The stories attached to it now involve an intruder murdering the girls, walls and trees that bleed, and figures hanging from the branches. None of it happened. It is legend trip material and it should not be repeated.

What did happen at Native boarding schools across this continent is documented and needs no invention. Children were taken from their families, forbidden to speak their languages, punished physically, worked, and in many places died of disease and neglect. Federal investigations have identified hundreds of burial sites at such schools, and the accounting is still going on.

Wheelock's own history is more complicated than most, since the Choctaw Nation ran it themselves for long stretches.

The site is a Choctaw Nation historic property and should be treated as one.

FAQ

Wo befindet sich Wheelock?

Wheelock liegt in Oklahoma, USA.