Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 18, No. 4
GOVERNOR DAUGHERTY (WINCHESTER) COLBERT
John Bartlett Meserve.
Few periods in history are so well revealed by their leading actors as is the early life, with its struggles, of the Five
Civilized Tribes in the West. Facts contemporaneous with that period are difficult to obtain because it was a sparsely documented
era in their lives and many details are still fugitive. It is a story of tribal and intertribal politics, of wars, harvests
and famines and is difficult to revive. The efforts of the Christian missionaries won the hearts of these stricken folk and
they were rapidly approaching the standards of Christian civilization. During those silent decades the teachings of the missionaries
were absorbed into the culture and political life of the Indians and quite naturally the administration of their political
system was influenced by the passionate, religious fervor to which they had responded. In the decade preceding the Civil War
the Chickasaws had recovered in a startling measure from the sorrow and wreckage of the removal days. Education at higher
institutions of learning in the East was developing an understanding leadership and upon their separation from the Choctaws
in 1855, a republic in minature was formed. It was a replica of the States. The capable Cyrus Harris inaugurated the new government
as its first governor to be succeeded in the fall of 1858 by Daugherty (Winchester) Colbert.
Daugherty (Winchester) Colbert although listed as a son in the large family of Levi Colbert which consisted of twelve sons
and eight daughters and although he was reared as a member of that family, a verification impels the conclusion that he was
not, in fact, a son of Levi Colbert. He is reputed to have been the natural son of an itinerant, adventurous white man by
the name of Darrity.1 His mother was a Chickasaw Indian woman and he was born in the Tombigbee River country near Cotton Gin Port, Monroe County,
Mississippi in 1810. In his early years, this child of romance was received by adoption into the family of Levi Colbert
and was reared and educated by that distinguished Chickasaw leader. Chickasaw law offered no defined procedure relating to
such adoptions but the practice was not unusual among the Indians. The communistic impulses of these simple folk inclined
their hearts to extend shelter, care and protection to the homeless of their race irrespective of circumstances. He was invested
with the family name of Colbert his own father's name being employed as his first name, but Darrity Colbert soon became Daugherty
Colbert occasioned not only by a similarity in the names but also probably influenced by the fact that a near relative of
Levi Colbert bore the name of Daugherty Colbert. The name Winchester Colbert was adopted by the young man some years later
and so through life he sometimes was recognized as Daugherty Colbert and at other times as Winchester Colbert.
The scholastic training of young Daugherty Colbert began with his attendance at Charity Hall,2 a Cumberland Presbyterian Mission School near Cotton Gin Port. The years 1826-7 were spent by him in Washington in the home
of Thomas L. McKenney3 the famous Indian Commissioner and compiler of Indian history, where he received some preliminary training in land surveying.
It was a unique but valuable experience for the Indian lad. The interest of McKenney continued after his return home and on
March 17, 1828 the Commissioner writes to Levi Colbert, "I hereby write to request that Daugherty may leave home in time to
reach the Choctaw Academy by the first of June." In this letter mention also is made of his taking up a course in land surveying.
Daugherty Colbert enrolled as a student in the Choctaw Academy4 in Kentucky, in 1828, his education being more or less directed by Thomas L. McKenney.
Upon his return from school young Colbert engaged in farming and in 1837 came with one of the first Chickasaw removal caravans
to the old Indian Territory. He lingered for a brief period in the vicinity of Doaksville and subsequently established him