Uncle Wallace Willis was a Choctaw freedman living in the Indian Territory, in what is now Choctaw County, near the City of Hugo, Oklahoma. His dates are unclear: perhaps 1820 to 1880. He is credited with composing several Negro spirituals. Willis received his name from his owner, Britt Willis, probably in Mississippi, the ancestral home of the Choctaws. He died, probably in what is now Atoka County, Oklahoma, as his unmarked grave is located there.
Prior to the Civil War, Willis and his wife, A...
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