Baptists started an academy for the Choctaw in 1818 near Georgetown, Kentucky, but it quickly failed due to lack of funding.
Chief Peter Pitchlynn and other leaders of the Choctaw had worked with U.S. Representative Richard Mentor Johnson (D-Kentucky) to request that part of the treaty money be used on schools.
Johnson had a common-law marriage with an enslaved woman of mixed race; their two daughters and other family members attended the school, in addition to Native American children from the Choctaw and other tribes.
The 1833 Treaty of Chicago of the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatamie tribes had $5,000 allocated to Johnson for their children to attend Choctaw Academy.
Private fundraising was started in Kentucky to save the 1825 building, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's Chahta Foundation made a grant for preservation.