DeWitt Clinton Duncan (Cherokee)
DeWitt Clinton Duncan was born in 1829 in the Cherokee Nation at Dahlonega,
Georgia to John Duncan and Elizabeth Abercrombie Duncan. Duncan's education
began in missions and Cherokee national schools and then expanded to
Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1861. After his collegiate
years, Duncan did not return to his home because of the Civil War, so he
traveled to New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Illinois while teaching school.
After the war, Duncan remained for a time in Charles City, Iowa, where he
continued to teach school, started a law practice, and served as mayor for
one year. By 1880, Duncan made his way back to the Cherokee Nation where he
continued his diverse careers: legal counsel, teacher and principal of the
Cherokee Male Seminary, and political writer and poet. This opportunity to
work as a writer allowed him time to contribute many works to Cherokee and
U.S. publications while writing under his English name or Too-qua-stee. In
November 1909, he died in Vinita, Oklahoma. Too-qua-stee's poem first
appeared June 2, 1904, in the Vinita Daily Chieftain.
