History of Oklahoma



The History of Oklahoma refers to the history of the state of and the history of the land that the state now occupies. Most of Oklahoma (all but the Panhandle) was acquired in the of 1803, while the  was not acquired until the U.S. land acquisitions following the.

There is some question as to whether or not was the first European to set foot inside.

The Indian Relocation
Prior to becoming a state in 1907, was designated the  by the U.S. government. This was done in order to provide a place for the s to relocate to as the expanded westward towards the  in the 1800s.

The of 1830 was signed by   within a year of taking office. This act gave the President the power to negotiate treaties for removal with Indian tribes living east of the. The treaty called for the Indians to give up their eastern land for land in the west. Those who wished to stay behind were allowed to stay and become citizens in their state. For the tribes that agreed to Jackson's terms, the removal was peaceful; however, those who resisted were eventually forced to leave.

The northern Indian tribes included the, , , , and. Because of their size and fragmentation, relocation was easier than that of the southern tribes, which were much larger and more organized.

The, , , , and tribes (the ) living in the  were considered  because of their adoption of Western customs and in the case of the Cherokee, the development of a , as well as having good relationships with their neighbors.

The signed relocation treaties in September 1830, notably the. Those Choctaws that decided to stay in were soon forced off of their ancestral lands and moved west.

The also refused to relocate and signed a treaty in March 1832 to open up a large portion of their land in exchange for protection of ownership of their remaining lands. The United States failed to protect the Creeks, and in 1837, they were militarily removed without ever signing a treaty.

The saw the relocation as inevitable and signed a treaty in 1832 which included protection until their move. The Chickasaws were forced to move early as a result of white settlers and the War Department's refusal to protect the Indian's lands.

In 1833, a small group of Seminoles signed a relocation treaty. However, the treaty was declared illegitimate by a majority of the tribe. The result was the and. Those that survived the wars eventually were paid to move west.

The Cherokee were tricked with an illegitimate treaty, the of 1833. The Cherokee were given two years to move west or else be forced to move. At the end of the two years only 2,000 Cherokees had migrated westward and 16,000 remained on their lands. The U.S. sent 7,000 soldiers to force the Cherokee to move without the time to gather their belongings. This march westward is known as the in which 4,000 Cherokee died.

Post-Civil War Period
After the, in 1866, the federal government forced the tribes into new treaties. Most of the land in central and western Indian Territory was ceded to the government. Some of the land was given to other tribes, but the central part, the so-called Unassigned Lands, remained with the government. Another concession allowed s to cross Indian lands. In 1862 was elected principal Chief of the "Southern Cherokee Nation". Furthermore the practice of slavery was outlawed. Some nations were integrated racially and otherwise with their slaves, but other nations were extremely hostile to the former slaves and wanted them exiled from their territory.

In the 1870s, a movement began by people wanting to settle the government lands in the Indian Territory under the of 1862. They referred to the Unassigned Lands as Oklahoma and to themselves as Boomers. After Watie's death in 1871 the Southern Cherokee Nation was moved to Kentucky. In the 1880s, early settlers of the state's very sparsely populated tried to form the  but lost a lawsuit against the federal government. This prompted a judge in, to unintentionally create a moniker for the area. "That is land that can be owned by no man," the judge said, and after that the panhandle was referred to as until statehood arrived decades later.

In 1884, in United States v. Payne, the United States District Court in, ruled that settling on the lands ceded to the government by the Indians under the 1866 treaties was not a crime. The government at first resisted, but soon enacted laws authorizing settlement.

Congress passed the, or General Allotment Act, in 1887 requiring the government to negotiate agreements with the tribes to divide Indian lands into individual holdings. Under the allotment system, tribal lands left over would be surveyed for settlement by non-Indians. Following settlement, many whites accused officials of giving preferential treatment to ex-slaves in land disputes.

Land runs


The United States entered into two new treaties with the Creeks and the Seminoles. Under these treaties, tribes would sell at least part of their land in Oklahoma to the U.S. to settle other Indian tribes and freemen. This land would be widely called the or Oklahoma Country in the 1880s due to it remaining uninhabited for over a decade.

In 1879, part-Cherokee argued that these Unassigned Lands be open for settlement because the title to these lands belonged to the United States and "whatever may have been the desire or intention of the United States Government in 1866 to locate Indians and negroes upon these lands, it is certain that no such desire or intention exists in 1879. The Negro since that date, has become a citizen of the United States, and Congress has recently enacted laws which practically forbid the removal of any more Indians into the Territory".



On, , President signed legislation which opened up the two million acres (8,000 km²) of the  for settlement on ,. It was to be the first of many s, but later land openings were conducted by means of a lottery because of widespread cheating&mdash;some of the settlers were called s because they had already staked their land claims before the land was officially opened for settlement.

The of 1890 created the  out of the Unassigned Lands and the area known as No Man's Land.

In 1893, the government purchased the rights to settle the, or , from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Outlet was part of the lands ceded to the government in the 1866 treaty, but the Cherokees retained access to the area and had leased it to several meat-packing plants for huge cattle ranches. The Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement by land run in 1894. Also, in 1893, Congress set up the to negotiate agreements with each of the Five Civilized Tribes for the allotment of tribal lands to individual Indians. Finally, the 1898 Curtis Act abolished tribal jurisdiction over all of.

20th century
In the early 20th century, the business began to get underway. Huge pools of underground oil were discovered in places like near. Many whites flooded into the state to make money. Many of the "old money" elite families of Oklahoma can date their rise to this time. The prosperity of the 1920s can be seen in the surviving architecture from the period, such as the Tulsa mansion which was converted into the or the  architecture of downtown Tulsa.

For Oklahoma, the early quarter of the 20th century was politically turbulent. Many different groups had flooded into the state; "black towns", or towns made of groups of s choosing to live separately from whites, sprouted all over the state, while most of the state abided by the within each individual city, racially separating people with a bias against any non-White race. , a neighborhood in Northern Tulsa, was known as because of the vibrant business, cultural, and religious community there. The area was the site of the 1921, one of the United States' deadliest race riots.

The Oklahoma achieved a small degree of success in this era (the small party had its highest per-capita membership in Oklahoma at this time with 12,000 dues paying members in 1914), including the publication of dozens of party newspapers and the election of several hundred local elected officials. Much of their success came from their willingness to reach out to Black and American Indian voters (they were the only party to continue to resist Jim Crow laws), and their willingness to alter traditional ideology when it made sense to do so (the biggest changes were the party's support of widespread small-scale land ownership, and their willingness to use religion positively to preach the "Socialist gospel"). The state party also delivered presidential candidate some of his highest vote counts in the nation.

The party was later crushed into virtual non-existence during the "white terror" that followed the ultra-repressive environment following the and the  era paranoia against anyone who spoke against the war or capitalism.

The tried to gain headway during this period but achieved little success. The was also particularly active but was virtually eliminated following a major campaign by the state government in the 1950s.

Dust Bowl Era
During the height of the, drought and poor agricultural practices led to the , when massive dust storms blew away the soil from large tracts of and deposited it on nearby farms and ranches, distant states, the , and even occasionally. The resulting crop failures forced many small farmers to flee the state altogether. Although the most persistent dust storms primarily affected the Panhandle, much of the state experienced occasional dusters, intermittent severe drought, and occasional searing heat. Towns such as, , and each recorded temperatures of 120°F (49°C) during the epic summer of 1936.

Advances in agro-mechanical technology simultaneously enabled less labor-intensive crop production. Many large landowners and planters had more labor than they needed with the new technology, and the federal paid them to reduce production. Plantation owners throughout the American South and much of eastern and southern Oklahoma released their of their debts and evicted them. With few or no local opportunities available for them, many emancipated, but destitute blacks and whites fled to the relative prosperity of to work as migrant farm workers and, after the onset of, in factories.

 by, photographs by , and songs of  tales of woe from the era. The negative images of the "" as a sort of rootless migrant laborer living in a near-animal state of scrounging for food greatly offended many Oklahomans. These works often mix the experiences of former sharecroppers of the western American South with those of the exodusters fleeing the fierce dust storms of the High Plains. Although they primarily feature the extremely destitute, the vast majority of the people, both staying in and fleeing from Oklahoma, suffered great poverty in the Depression years. Some Oklahoma politicians denounced The Grapes of Wrath (often without reading it) as an attempt to impugn the morals and character of Oklahomans.

After World War II
The term "Okie" in recent years has taken on a new meaning in the past few decades, with many Oklahomans (both former and present) wearing the label as a badge of honor (as a symbol of the Okie survivor attitude). Others (mostly alive during the Dust Bowl era) still see the term negatively because they see the "Okie" migrants as quitters and transplants to the West Coast.

Major trends in Oklahoma history after the Depression era included the rise again of tribal sovereignty (including the issuance of tribal automobile license plates, and the opening of tribal smoke shops, casinos, grocery stores, and other commercial enterprises), the building of, the rapid growth of suburban Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the drop in population in Western Oklahoma, the oil boom of the 1980s and the oil bust of the 1990s.

As Oklahoma's Centennial celebrations draw closer, major efforts are being undertaken by state and local leaders to revive Oklahoma's small towns and population centers, which had seen major decline following the oil bust.

Oklahoma City Bombing
In 1995 Oklahoma became the scene of one of the worst acts of terrorism ever committed in U.S. History. On April 19, 1995, in the, veteran  bombed the , killing 168 people, including 19 children. and were the convicted perpetrators of the attack, although many believe others were involved. was later sentenced to death by lethal injection, while his partner,, who was convicted of 161 counts of received life in prison without the possibility of.