Indian Territory

a tract of land set aside for the Indians. It was not an organized territory. It sent no representative to Congress. It had no governor, no capital. It occupied the area now known as Oklahoma. The surface varies from lowland plains to high hills. The Ozark Mountains enter from Arkansas. A continuation of the Kansas prairie occupies a third of the district. The rest is wooded. The region is rich in coal, petroleum, zinc, lead, and building stone. There is a supply of asphalt in the south. There are still many wild animals. Coyotes, foxes, prairie dogs, and grouse are found on the prairies and in the copsewood regions. The deer, panther, black bear, and turkey are found in the mountains and wooded bottom lands.

Indian Territory was set apart for Indian reservations in 1832. The Chickasaw nation, the Cherokee nation, the Choctaw nation, the Creek nation, and the Seminole nation were settled each on a reservation under its own control. They are called the civilized tribes. They were encouraged to establish governments on the model of states, with governor, legislature, etc. It was hoped that these nations might prosper. They settled down to the cultivation of the soil. They raised corn and cotton and live stock. After the manner of their white neighbors, they became the possessors of many slaves. In fact they brought slaves with them from their old homestead. Sequoyah, a Cherokee chief, the same in whose honor the California trees were named, invented an Indian alphabet. Books and even newspapers were printed in the Indian tongue. Under missionary influence the various nations established schools and academies, the latter even fitting for Eastern colleges.

But for some fatal reason, the Indians do not thrive by agriculture. They intermarried with negroes and whites. At the close of the Civil War they were required to free their slaves and assign them lands. Whites were from the first prevented by law from getting title to land. An Indian might rent to, but not sell to a white man. A white man might marry an Indian wife and hold land in her name, but not otherwise. As a matter of fact, the whites encroached by the latter means. Several lines of railroads were put through with government permission. Farms were opened, ranches were established, towns located, oil wells driven, mines operated, and flouring mills built, all under leases. In 1890 a part of Indian Territory was organized as Oklahoma Territory.

As might be expected the Indian proved so unequal to the white man in making bargains that the Dawes Commission was established by Congress in 1893 to control leases and prevent the whites and half-breeds from driving the real Indian entirely into the mountains and forests. One of the plans undertaken was that of changing the ownership of land, taking it from the Indian nation, and giving it to the Indian individual, with safeguards to prevent his selling.

In 1900 the population was 392,060, of which 52,500 were Indian and 36,853 negro. The population at the middle of the decade was half a million, but the Indian element, even counting half-breeds, was not gaining. As the whites owned no land and were no part of the tribal organization, they were not able to levy taxes on real estate. The rural white population had difficulty in maintaining schools. The towns fared better, but, according to the last census, 50,000 white children had no schools. In 1898 the general government stepped in, authorizing a system of public schools. In 1906 the citizens voted to unite with Oklahoma and enter the Union. Indian Territory is now a historical expression. It appears on the map no longer.