The land that now forms most of the state of Oklahoma appears as
“Indian Territory” on maps drawn in the 1800s. Created for resettlement
of Indian (Native American) peoples removed from the East, Indian
Territory eventually was home to members of tribes from across the nation. Indian Territory was dissolved with the creation of the present state
of Oklahoma in 1907. Today, Oklahoma has the largest number of
Native Americans and the greatest number of tribal nations of any state
in the United States. More than sixty-seven nations exist in Oklahoma;
twenty-nine of these are federally recognized Native American Nations.
The original idea
In 1825, Congress set aside for Indian use the country west of Missouri
and Arkansas and east of Mexican territory. Closed to white settlement,
it was first called Indian Country and then, by 1830, Indian Territory.
Indian Territory arose from the tensions created by the westward expansion of white settlers into Native American lands. The federal government wished to remove Native Americans from their eastern homelands,
opening those lands to white settlement and it also wanted to protect the
relocated Indians from land-hungry whites. In giving Native Americans
Indian Territory, the government assumed that Indian Territory would
remain the far western edge of the United States.
Relocation begins
Some Native American peoples voluntarily moved to Indian Territory
from the east. Cherokees known as the Old Settlers moved there in
1828. Then, in 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which
authorized negotiations and funds for the relocation of all southeastern
tribes to Indian Territory, whether they were willing to go or not.
During the 1830s, tens of thousands of Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles were removed from their homelands
in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. These groups, often
called the Five Civilized Tribes, were marched forcibly from their homes.
Thousands died in the harsh removal. The Choctaw and Chicasaw
moved first. A large group of Cherokees, led by principal chief John Ross
(1790–1866) resisted the removal. After trying to stop the forced relocation in the courts and failing, all but a small portion were rounded up by
federal troops in 1838 and confined to holding camps. Ross then agreed
to oversee the journey of his followers to join those already settled in the
northeastern part of Indian Territory. Fiercest resistance came from the
Seminoles (see Seminole Wars). After a protracted war in the swamps of
Florida, all but a few had been forced westward by 1842.
Life in Indian Territory
In Indian Territory, the southeastern Native Americans established tribal
governments, planted crops, and founded new schools. Customs of daily
life, religions, and cultural traditions were transplanted from the eastern
homes and adapted to the new setting.
Meanwhile, other eastern tribes were being pressed to move into
Indian Territory. From New York came Senecas and others from the
Iroquois Confederation. Out of the Great Lakes region and Ohio valley
came Potawatomis, Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Kickapoos,
Miamis, and others. Quapaws were displaced from Arkansas. These
groups were assigned lands immediately west of the Missouri border.
These relocations were mostly peaceful, except for a group of Sac and
Fox people. Led by leader Black Hawk (1767–1838), this group resisted
removal from Illinois, but after several bloody encounters with state militiamen, they were forced to resettle in Iowa, then part of Indian
Territory.
In the 1840s, the U.S. government settled the tribes within the
hunting areas of other tribes, often placing them near their traditional
enemies without regard to the conflicts that would arise. The war-like Osages, Kiowas, and Comanches, for example, were especially vigorous
in attacking the newcomers from the east. Creeks and Seminoles disagreed on treatment of African American slaves brought with them, and
old hostilities were rekindled between Choctaws and Chickasaws.
Boundary disputes arose between the Creek and Cherokees. Divisions
among the Cherokees were especially bitter. Relations between the followers of John Ross, who had resisted being moved, and the minority
Old Settlers, who had supported the removal treaty, erupted into
violence.
A “permanent Indian frontier”
The government meanwhile established military posts throughout the
territory to maintain peace among the tribes. They continued to promise that Indian Territory would be permanent keeping whites and
Indians apart and allowing the native peoples to gradually learn the ways
of the white culture.
Events of the mid-1840s changed the frontier idea. Texas was annexed in 1845; Oregon Territory was acquired from Great Britain in
1846; and Mexico ceded a vast area of the southwest to the United States
in 1848. With the United States now stretching to the Pacific Ocean,
Indian Territory suddenly was in the middle of the nation, not on its far
edge. As white settlers pressed westward, around and through the territory, the tribes there soon faced a new set of demands.
Losing more land
During the 1850s, Indian holdings in the territory were reduced dramatically. The organization of the Kansas and Nebraska territories in 1854
lowered the Indian Territory’s northern boundary, removing more than
half of its former area. Tribes in Kansas and Nebraska were urged to surrender land to white settlers now swarming across the Missouri River.
Within a year, nine tribes agreed to withdraw to a small portion of their
holdings and to sell the rest.
After the American Civil War (1861–65), the federal government
forced a new series of land cessions (surrenderings). In what has been
called the “Second Trail of Tears,” many smaller tribes were removed
from what had been the territory’s northern portion. The Osages, Kaws, Poncas, Otoes, and Missouris were resettled on land surrendered by
Cherokees. Iowas, Sac and Fox, Kickapoos, and Potawatomies were removed to land taken from Creeks and Seminoles.
Bleak years
As the Native North Americans of the Great Plains lost the Indian
wars of the late 1860s, they were sent into the increasingly crowded
Indian Territory—Cheyennes and Arapahoes in the west-central portion, and south of them the Comanches, Kiowas, and Eastern Apaches.
These years were among the bleakest of Indian Territory’s troubled history. Western tribes struggled with the hopeless demand that they take
up farming on the semiarid high plains. Angry rivalries and bitter memories continued to foul relations among the Five Tribes. The eastern part
of Indian Territory became a haven for outlaws.
Texas cattlemen began driving herds across Indian Territory to
Kansas railheads, and by the 1870s ranchers were pasturing their animals
on Indian lands. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad was built
southward across the territory by 1872, followed by the Atlantic and
Pacific and a branch of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. As these developments introduced thousands of whites to the area, pressure grew to
open Indian lands to outside settlement. By 1894, an estimated 250,000
whites lived in the Indian Territory.
The Dawes Severalty Act (also known as the General Allotment
Act) of 1887 provided for breaking up land collectively held by Indian
tribes into individual holdings, or allotments, with the remainder
opened to white settlement. When special commissioners tried to set this
process in motion in Indian Territory, they were vigorously opposed by
native leaders. Congress finally compelled the Five Tribes to comply, and
their lands were distributed among those on the tribal rolls or set aside
for town sites and schools. Meanwhile, federal courts had taken full jurisdiction in the territory, effectively ending tribal governments.
The land runs
In 1889, much of the land of the western portion of Indian Territory was
distributed to non-Indians through a series of dramatic “land rushes” or
“runs.” In one run that year, at least fifty thousand persons—known as
boomers—arrived at the scheduled land rush. When the cannon boomed, they dashed onto the lands designated as “unassigned” to take
up claims. The largest of these land runs was in 1893, when a portion of
former Cherokee land was overrun by more than one hundred thousand
boomers.
The western half of the territory and a strip immediately north of
the Texas panhandle were taken over by non-Indians and organized into
Oklahoma Territory. The tribes in what remained of Indian Territory petitioned Congress to allow them to form the independent Indian state of
Sequoyah. Congress refused. In 1907, with all tribal lands distributed,
Indian Territory formally disappeared when Congress merged it with
Oklahoma Territory to create the state of Oklahoma.