Early Life and Education
Alice Brown was born on September 10, 1852 in the Cherokee town of Park Hill, Indian Territory and grew up near Fort Gibson. Her father, Dr. John Frippo Brown, was from Scotland and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. He accompanied the Seminole as a military surgeon during their forced removal from Florida. During this journey, he married Lucy Redbeard, a Seminole from Katcvlke or the Tiger Clan. As the Seminole had a matrilineal system, the children of a marriage belonged to the mother's clan. Her parents had a total of seven children.
Her older brothers John F. and Andrew Jackson Brown each started to serve the tribe by the time of the American Civil War. Four members of her mother's family developed as significant Seminole leaders from 1832 to 1935. Like her brothers, Alice Brown was well educated. One of her influential teachers was Caroline Bushyhead, a Cherokee. She learned both English and Mikasuki as first languages, and also attended the Ramsay Mission School, started by the Episcopal Church and then operated by Baptist missionaries.
During 1867, when Alice was 15 years old, a cholera epidemic broke out among the Seminole tribe, and she assisted her father in caring for the sick. After the epidemic, both her parents died, and she went to live with her oldest brother John at his ranch at Wewoka, the capital of the Seminole Nation. After completing her studies, Brown taught, most likely at Mesukey Academy for Boys in Sasakwa. Both there and likely at the girls' school Emakwha Academy, Brown Davis likely taught children of freedmen along with the Seminole, for the missionaries integrated the schools in 1874.
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