Wallace Willis

Wallace Willis was an African American musician and songwriter enslaved in the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory during the nineteenth century. He was enslaved by Britt Willis and was periodically hired to work at Spencer Academy, a Presbyterian mission school for Choctaw boys. Alexander Reid, who served as superintendent there before the Civil War, later remembered Wallace singing spirituals while at work and credited him with creating several songs that entered the Fisk Jubilee Singers' repertory.

Modern research has clarified an important family detail: Minerva Willis, long described in secondary literature as Wallace's wife, was actually his daughter. The Oklahoma Historical Society cites an 1884 obituary written by Reid and legal records as evidence for this father-daughter relationship. Minerva sang with Wallace and participated in the early performance and transmission of the songs associated with him.

Wallace is traditionally credited with several spirituals, including “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Steal Away to Jesus,” “I'm a-Rolling,” and “The Angels Are Coming.” His exact birth and death dates are uncertain. Because spirituals circulated orally and were reshaped in performance, modern scholarship treats individual authorship with care; Wallace remains a significant documented source for these songs, but the full origins of particular versions cannot always be reconstructed with certainty.