Indian Territory

Not to be confused with Indiana Territory.
This article is about the historical territory in the United States of America. For states and territories of India, see States and union territories of India. For other uses, see Indian Country (disambiguation).
Indian Territory
Unorganized territory of the United States
1834–1907
Indian Territory, 1890s
Government Self Government
History
 • Indian Intercourse Act June 30, 1834
 • Platte Purchase 1836
 • Kansas–Nebraska Act May 30, 1854
 • Oklahoma Territory May 2, 1890
 • Oklahoma statehood November 16, 1907
Today part of Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska
Missouri (Platte Purchase)
Colorado
North Dakota
South Dakota
Montana
Wyoming

As generic terms, Indian Territory, the Indian Territories, or Indian country describe an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Indians who held aboriginal title to their land. In general, the tribes ceded land they occupied in exchange for land grants in an area purchased by the United States federal government from Napoleon, the Louisiana Purchase. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the Civil War, the policy of the government was one of assimilation.

The term Indian Reserve describes lands the British government set aside for indigenous tribes between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River in the time before the Revolutionary War.

Indian Territory later came to refer to an unorganized territory whose general borders were initially set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834, and was the successor to Missouri Territory after Missouri received statehood. The borders of Indian Territory were reduced in size as various Organic Acts were passed by Congress to create incorporated territories of the United States. The 1907 Oklahoma Enabling Act created the single state of Oklahoma by combining Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, ending the existence of an Indian Territory.

Description and geography

Indian Country 1834 (in Red)
1885 government map of Indian Territory
1891 government map of Indian Territory
Indian Territory in 1885 (top) and 1891 (bottom)

Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land within the United States of America reserved for the forced re-settlement of Native Americans. The general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. The territory was located in the Midwest.

While Congress passed several Organic Acts that provided a path for statehood for much of the original Indian Country, Congress never passed an Organic Act for the Indian Territory. Indian Territory was never an organized incorporated territory of the United States. In general, tribes could not sell land to non-Indians (Johnson v. M'Intosh). Treaties with the tribes restricted entry of non-Indians into tribal areas; Indian tribes were largely self-governing, were suzerain nations, with established tribal governments and well established cultures. The region never had a formal government until after the American Civil War. Therefore, the geographical location commonly called Indian Territory was not a traditional territory.[1]

After the Civil War, the Southern Treaty Commission re-wrote treaties with tribes that sided with the Confederacy, reducing the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes and providing land to resettle Plains Indians and tribes of the Midwest.[2] These re-written treaties included provisions for a territorial legislature with proportional representation from various tribes.

In time, the Indian Territory was reduced to what is now Oklahoma. The Organic Act of 1890 reduced Indian Territory to the lands occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes and the Tribes of the Quapaw Indian Agency (at the borders of Kansas and Missouri). The remaining western portion of the former Indian Territory became the Oklahoma Territory.

Gray's new map of Texas and Indian Territory (c. 1876)

The Oklahoma organic act applied the laws of Nebraska to the incorporated territory of Oklahoma Territory, and the laws of Arkansas to the still unincorporated Indian Territory (for years the federal court in Ft. Smith, Arkansas had jurisdiction).

History

Indian Reserve and Louisiana Purchase

Main article: Indian Reserve (1763)

The concept of an Indian territory is the successor to the British Indian Reserve, a British North American territory established by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that set aside land for use by American Indians. The proclamation limited the settlement of Europeans to Crown-claimed lands east of the Appalachian Mountains. The territory remained active until the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the American Revolutionary War, and land was ceded to the United States. The British administration reduced the land area of the Indian Reserve – the United States further reduced it after the American Revolutionary War – until it included only lands west of the Mississippi River.

At the time of the American Revolution, many Native American tribes had long-standing relationships with British who were loyal to the British Empire, but they had a less-developed relationship with the Empire's colonists-turned-rebels. After the defeat of the British, the Americans twice invaded the Ohio Country and were twice defeated. They finally defeated the Indian Western Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and imposed the Treaty of Greenville, which ceded most of what is now Ohio, part of present-day Indiana, and the lands that include present-day Chicago and Detroit, to the United States federal government.

The period after the American Revolutionary War was one of rapid western expansion. The areas occupied by American Indians in the United States were called Indian country, which was not even an unorganized territory, as the areas were established by treaty.

The Louisiana Purchase was one of several historical territorial additions to the United States.

In 1803 the United States of America agreed to purchase France's claim to French Louisiana for a total of $15 million (less than 3 cents per acre).[3]

President Thomas Jefferson doubted the legality of the purchase. However, the chief negotiator, Robert R. Livingston believed that the 3rd article of the treaty providing for the Louisiana Purchase would be acceptable to congress. The 3rd article stated, in part:[4]

the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess. (8 Stat. at L. 202)

Which committed the US government to “the ultimate, but not to the immediate, admission” of the territory as multiple states, and “postponed its incorporation into the Union to the pleasure of Congress”[4]

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson and his successors viewed much of the land west of the Mississippi River as a place to resettle the Native Americans, so that white settlers would be free to live in the lands east of the river. Indian removal became the official policy of the United States government with the passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act, formulated by President Andrew Jackson.

When Louisiana became a state in 1812, the remaining territory was renamed Missouri Territory to avoid confusion. Arkansas Territory, which included the present State of Arkansas plus most of the state of Oklahoma, was created out of the southern part of Missouri Territory in 1819. Originally the western border of Missouri was intended to extend due south to the Red River. However, during negotiations with the Choctaw in 1820, Andrew Jackson ceded more of Arkansas Territory to the Choctaw than he realized, resulting in a bend in the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma at Ft. Smith, Arkansas. The General Survey Act of 1824, allowed a survey that established the western border of Arkansas Territory well inside the present state of Oklahoma, where the Choctaw and Cherokee tribes had previously begun to settle. The two nations objected strongly, and in 1828 a new survey redefined the western Arkansas border. Thus, the "Indian zone" would cover the present states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and part of Iowa. [5]

Relocation and treaties

Map of Indian territory 1836

Before the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act, much of what was called Indian Territory was a large area in the central part of the United States whose boundaries were set by treaties between the US Government and various indigenous tribes. After 1871, the Federal Government dealt with Indian Tribes through statute; the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act also stated that. “[n]o Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation ...”.[6][7][8]

The Indian Appropriations Act also made it a federal crime to commit murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny within any Territory of the United States. The Supreme Court affirmed the action in 1886 in United States v. Kagama, which affirmed that the US Government has plenary power over Native American tribes within its borders using the rationalization that “The power of the general government over these remnants of a race once powerful... is necessary to their protection as well as to the safety of those among whom they dwell”[9] While the federal government of the United States had previously recognized the Indian Tribes as semi-independent, “it has the right and authority, instead of controlling them by treaties, to govern them by acts of Congress, they being within the geographical limit of the United States... The Indians owe no allegiance to a State within which their reservation may be established, and the State gives them no protection.” [10]

Reductions of area

White settlers continued to flood into Indian country. As the population increased, the homesteaders could petition Congress for creation of a territory. This would initiate an Organic Act which established a three-part territorial government. The governor and judiciary were appointed by the President of the United States, while the legislature was elected by citizens residing in the territory. One elected representative was allowed a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives. The federal government took responsibility for territorial affairs. Later, the inhabitants of the territory could apply for admission as a full state. No such action was taken for the so-called Indian Territory, so that area was not treated as a legal territory.[5]

Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota Territories 1855

The reduction of the land area of Indian Territory (or Indian Country, as defined in the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834), the successor of Missouri Territory began almost immediately after its creation with:

Indian Country was reduced to the approximate boundaries of the current state of Oklahoma by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which created Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory. The key boundaries of the territories were:

Kansas became a state in 1861, and Nebraska became a state in 1867. In 1890 the Oklahoma Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory out of the western part of Indian Territory, in anticipation of admitting both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory as a single State of Oklahoma.

Civil War and Reconstruction

At the beginning of the Civil War, Indian Territory had been essentially reduced to the boundaries of the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma, and the primary residents of the territory were members of the Five Civilized Tribes or Plains tribes that had been relocated to the western part of the territory on land leased from the Five Civilized Tribes. In 1861, the U.S. abandoned Fort Washita, leaving the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations defenseless against the Plains tribes. Later the same year, the Confederate States of America signed a Treaty with Choctaws and Chickasaws. Ultimately, the Five Civilized Tribes and other tribes that had been relocated to the area, signed treaties of friendship with the Confederacy.

During the Civil War, Congress gave the U.S. president the authority to, if a tribe was "in a state of actual hostility to the government of the United States... and, by proclamation, to declare all treaties with such tribe to be abrogated by such tribe"(25 USC Sec. 72). [11]

Prior to the Civil War, the Pottawatomie massacre (May 24–25, 1856) was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas.

Members of the Five Civilized Tribes, and others who had relocated to the Oklahoma section of Indian Territory, fought primarily on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War in Indian territory. Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Confederate commander of the Cherokee Nation, became the last Confederate general to surrender in the American Civil War, near the community of Doaksville on June 23, 1865. The Reconstruction Treaties signed at the end of the Civil War fundamentally changed the relationship between the tribes and the U.S. government.

The Reconstruction Era played out differently in Indian Territory and for Native Americans than for the rest of the country. In 1862, Congress passed a law that allowed the president, by proclamation, to cancel treaties with Indian Nations siding with the Confederacy (25 USC 72).[12] The United States House Committee on Territories (created in 1825) was examining the effectiveness of the policy of Indian removal, which was after the war considered to be of limited effectiveness. It was decided that a new policy of Assimilation would be implemented. To implement the new policy, the Southern Treaty Commission was created by Congress to write new treaties with the Tribes siding with the Confederacy.

After the Civil War the Southern Treaty Commission re-wrote treaties with tribes that sided with the Confederacy, reducing the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes and providing land to resettle Plains Indians and tribes of the mid-west.[2] General components of replacement treaties signed in 1866 include:[13]

One component of assimilation would be the distribution of property held in-common by the tribe to individual members of the tribe.[14]

The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name given to three treaties signed in Medicine Lodge, Kansas between the US government and southern Plains Indian tribes who would ultimately reside in the western part of Indian Territory (ultimately Oklahoma Territory). The first treaty was signed October 21, 1867, with the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.[15] The second, with the Plains Apache, was signed the same day.[16] The third treaty was signed with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho on October 28.[17]

Another component of assimilation was homesteading. The Homestead Act of 1862, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The Act gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres (65 hectares or one-fourth section) of undeveloped federal land. Within Indian Territory, as lands were removed from communal tribal ownership, a land patent (or first-title deed) was given to tribal members. The remaining land was sold on a first-come basis (typically by land run, with settlers also receiving a land patent type deed. For these now former Indian lands, the General Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms.

Oklahoma Territory, end of territories upon statehood

The Oklahoma organic act of 1890 created an organized incorporated territory of the United States of Oklahoma Territory, with the intent of combining the Oklahoma and Indian territories into a single State of Oklahoma. The citizens of Indian Territory tried, in 1905, to gain admission to the union as the State of Sequoyah, but were rebuffed by Congress and an Administration which did not want two new Western states, Sequoyah and Oklahoma. Theodore Roosevelt then proposed a compromise that would join Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory to form a single state. This resulted in passage of the Oklahoma Enabling Act, which President Roosevelt signed June 16, 1906.[18] empowered the people residing in Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention and subsequently to be admitted to the union as a single state. Citizens then joined to seek admission of a single state to the Union. With Oklahoma statehood in November 1907, Indian Territory was extinguished.

Tribes

Five Civilized Tribes

Main article: Five Civilized Tribes
The Mississippian culture was a mound building Native American culture that flourished in North America before the arrival of Europeans.

What are today known as the Five Civilized Tribes originated in the Southeastern United States, and were probably descendents of the Mississippian culture, an agrarian culture that grew crops of corn and beans, with urban centers and regional chiefdoms, of which the greatest was the settlement known as Cahokia, in present-day Illinois. Stratified societies developed, with hereditary religious and political elites, and flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from AD 800 to 1500.

Cherokee Nation Historic Courthouse in Tahlequah, built in 1849, is the oldest public building standing in Oklahoma.[19]

Between 1814 and 1840, the Five Civilized Tribes had gradually ceded most of their lands in the Southeast section of the US through a series of treaties. The southern part of Indian Country (what eventually became the State of Oklahoma) served as the destination for the policy of Indian removal, a policy pursued intermittently by American presidents early in the 19th century, but aggressively pursued by President Andrew Jackson after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Five Civilized Tribes in the South were the most prominent tribes displaced by the policy, a relocation that came to be known as the Trail of Tears during the Choctaw removals starting in 1831. The trail ended in what is now Arkansas and Oklahoma, where there were already many Indians living in the territory, as well as whites and escaped slaves. Other tribes, such as the Delaware, Cheyenne, and Apache were also forced to relocate to the Indian territory.

The historic Choctaw Capitol in Tuskahoma.

The Five Civilized Tribes established tribal capitals in the following towns:

The Five Civilized Tribes set up towns such as Tulsa, Ardmore, Muskogee, which became some of the larger towns in the state. They also brought their African slaves to Oklahoma, which added to the black American population in the state.

Northeast tribes

Sioux or Dakota-style tipis on left and Ojibwe wigwam on right in White Earth, Minnesota, in 1928

The Western Lakes Confederacy was a loose confederacy of tribes around the Great Lakes region, organized following the American Revolutionary War to resist the expansion of the United States into the Northwest Territory. Members of the confederacy were ultimately removed to the present-day Oklahoma, including the Shawnee, Delaware (also called Lenape), Miami, and Kickapoo.

The area of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma was used to resettle the Iowa tribe, Sac and Fox, Absentee Shawnee, Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribes.

The Council of Three Fires is an alliance of the Ojibwe or Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes. In the first Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1829, the tribes of the Council of Three Fires ceded to the United States their lands in Illinois Michigan and Wisconsin. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced the members of the Council of Three Fires to move first to present-day Iowa, then to Kansas and Nebraska, and ultimately to Oklahoma.[21]

The Illinois Potawatomi moved to present-day Nebraska and the Indiana Potawatomi moved to present-day Osawatomie, Kansas, an event known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death. The group settling in Nebraska adapted to the Plains Indian culture but the group settling in Kansas remained steadfast to their woodlands culture. In 1867 part of the Kansas group negotiated the "Treaty of Washington with the Potawatomi" in which the Kansas Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation split and part of their land in Kansas was sold, purchasing land near present-day Shawnee, Oklahoma, they became the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.[22]

The Ottawa tribe first purchased lands near Ottawa, Kansas, residing there until 1867 when they sold their lands in Kansas and purchased land in an area administered by the Quapaw Indian Agency in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, becoming the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma.

Iroquois Confederacy

The Iroquois Confederacy was an alliance of tribes, originally from the New York state area consisting of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. In pre-revolutionary war days, the Confederacy expanded to areas from Kentucky and Virginia north. All of the members of the Confederacy, except the Oneida, allied with the British during the Revolutionary War, and were forced to cede their land after the war. Most moved to Canada after the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794, some remained in New York, and some moved to Ohio, joining the Shawnee.

The 1838 and 1842 Treaties of Buffalo Creek were treaties with New York Indians, such as the Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, and Oneida Indian Nation, which covered land sales of tribal reservations under the US Indian removal program, by which they planned to move most eastern tribes to Indian Territory. Initially, the tribes were moved to the present state of Kansas, and later to Oklahoma on to land administered by the Quapaw Indian Agency.

Plains Indian tribes

Tipis painted by George Catlin c. 1830

The Plains Indians are an archetype in art and literature for all Native Americans. Initially, some Plains Indian tribes were agrarian and others were hunter-gatherers. Some tribes used the dog as a draft animal to pull small travois (or sleighs) to help move from place to place. However, in the 18th century most plains tribes adopted the horse culture and became nomadic. The tipi (also tepee and teepee, and not to be confused with the wigwam of the tribes of the Northeast and the West) was used by Plains Indians as a dwelling because they were portable and could be reconstructed quickly when the tribe settled in a new area for hunting or a pow wow (a periodic gathering of medicine men and/or spiritual leaders).

Plains Indians at time of European contact and current homelands.

Historically, the Arapaho had assisted the Cheyenne and Lakota people in driving the Kiowa and Comanche south from the Northern Plains, their hunting area ranged from Montana to Texas. Kiowa and Comanche controlled a vast expanse of territory from the Arkansas River to the Brazos River. By 1840 many plains tribes had made peace with each other and developed Plains Indian Sign Language as a means of communicate with their allies.

Pre-contact distribution of the Western Siouan languages
Pre-contact distribution of Algonquian languages
Pre-contact distribution of Northern Uto-Aztecan languages

Tribes indigenous to Oklahoma

Main article: History of Oklahoma

Because Oklahoma is situated between the Great Plains and the Ozark Plateau in the Gulf of Mexico watershed, the western part of the state is subjected to extended periods of drought and high winds in the region may then generate dust storms, and the eastern part of the state is humid subtropical climate zone. Tribes that are indigenous to the current-day State of Oklahoma include both agrarian tribes settling in the eastern part of the state and hunter-gatherer tribes adopting a horse culture settling in the western part of the state. These indigenous tribes are the only tribes currently residing in the State of Oklahoma that would qualify as having aboriginal title to their land. Other tribes received their land either by treaty via land grant from the federal government of the United States or they purchased the land receiving fee simple recorded title.

Agrarian tribes

A map showing approximate areas of Mississippian cultures including Caddoan Mississippian culture in southeast Oklahoma.

Hunter-gatherer tribes

Government

During the Reconstruction Era, when the size of Indian Territory was reduced, the renegotiated treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes and the tribes occupying the land of the Quapaw Indian Agency contained provisions for a government structure in Indian Territory. Replacement treaties signed in 1866 contained provisions for:[13]

In a continuation of the new policy, the 1890 Oklahoma organic act extended civil and criminal laws of Arkansas over the Indian Territory,[33] and extended the laws of Nebraska over Oklahoma Territory.[34]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Everett, Dianna. "Indian Territory," Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, published by the Oklahoma Historical Society (accessed October 17, 2013).
  2. 1 2 Pennington, William D. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. "Reconstruction Treaties." Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  3. ↑ "ACQUISITION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, 1781–1867, Table 1.1" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  4. 1 2 "Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901).". Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  5. 1 2 "Everett, Dianna. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. "Indian Territory."". Retrieved 2012-02-15.
  6. ↑ 25 U.S.C. § 71. Indian Appropriation Act of March 3, 1871, 16 Stat. 544, 566
  7. ↑ Congress’ plenary authority to “override treaty provisions and legislate for the protection of the Indians.” United States v. City of McAlester, 604 F.2d 42, 47 (10th Cir. 1979)
  8. ↑ United States v. Blackfeet Tribe of Blackfeet Indian Reservation, 364 F.Supp. 192, 194 (D.Mont. 1973) (“[A]n Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the United States permits it to be sovereign – neither more nor less.”)
  9. ↑ "United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 (1886), Filed May 10, 1886". Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  10. ↑ "United States v. Kagama – 118 U.S. 375 (1886)". Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  11. ↑ "Act of Congress, R.S. Sec. 2080 derived from act July 5, 1862, ch. 135, Sec. 1, 12 Stat. 528.". Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  12. ↑ "Abrogation of treaties (25 USC Sec. 72) Codification R.S. Sec. 2080 derived from act July 5, 1862, ch. 135, Sec. 1, 12 Stat. 528.". Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  13. 1 2 "Treaty of Washington United States-Choctaw Nation-Chickasaw Nation, 14 Stat. 769, signed April 28, 1866".
  14. ↑ Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek: Hearings on H.R. 19213 Before the H. Subcomm. on Indian Affairs, at 24 (February 14, 1912) (statement of Hon. Byron P. Harrison) ("While the {1866 Treaty of Washington} contemplated the immediate allotment in severalty of the lands in the Choctaw-Chickasaw country, yet such allotment in severalty to anyone was never made under such treaty, and has only been consummated since the breaking up of the tribal organization and preparatory to the organization of the State of Oklahoma.")
  15. ↑ "Treaty with the Kiowa and Comanche, 1867 (15 Stats., 581) (Medicine Lodge Treaty #1)".
  16. ↑ "Treaty with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, 1867" (Medicine Lodge Treaty #2), (15 Stats. 589)". Retrieved 2012-02-29.
  17. ↑ "Treaty with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, 1867" (Medicine Lodge Treaty #3), (15 Stats. 593)". Retrieved 2012-02-29.
  18. ↑ "Enabling Act (Oklahoma) Public Law 234, HR 12797, Jun 16, 1906 (59th Congress, Session 1, chapter 3335". Retrieved 2012-01-30.
  19. ↑ Moser, George W. A Brief History of Cherokee Lodge #10 (retrieved 26 June 2009).
  20. ↑ Burt, Jesse; Ferguson, Bob (1973). "The Removal". Indians of the Southeast: Then and Now. Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press. pp. 170–173. ISBN 0-687-18793-1.
  21. ↑ "1833 Treaty with the Chippewa, etc.". Retrieved 2012-02-29.
  22. ↑ "Treaty of Washington with the Potawatomi 1867". Retrieved 2012-02-29.
  23. ↑ "1817 Ponca Treaty with the US". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  24. ↑ "1858 Ponca Treaty with the US". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  25. ↑ "US-Sioux Treaty of 1868". Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  26. ↑ "May, John D. Otoe-Missouria. Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture.". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  27. 1 2 "TREATY WITH THE COMANCHE, ETC., Aug. 24, 1835. (7 Stat., 474) Treaty of Friendship between US and Comanche and Witchetaw nations, and Cherokee Muscogee, Choctaw, Osage, Seneca and Quapaw and established framework for legal system supervised by US. Signed on the eastern border of the Grand Prairie, near the Canadian river, in the Muscogee nation". Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  28. 1 2 3 "Treaty with the Comanche, Aionai, Anadarko, Caddo, etc., Wacoes, Keeches, Tonkaways, Wichetas, Towa-KarroesMay 15, 1846, (9 Stat., 844). The treaty established the US as a protectorate of the tribes and established legal procedures between tribes and the US, Signed at Council Springs, Texas". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  29. ↑ "1957 Treaty with the Pawnee". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  30. ↑ "TREATY WITH THE CADDO, July 1, 1835 (7 Stat., 470)". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  31. ↑ Schlesier, Karl H. Plains Indians, 500–1500 CE: The Archaeological Past of Historic Groups. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994: 347–348.
  32. ↑ "TREATY WITH THE KIOWA, ETC, May 26, 1837 (7 Stat. 533). Treaty of friendship between US and Kioway, Ka-ta-ka, and Ta-wa-ka-ro nations and Comanche, Witchetaw, Cherokee Muscogee, Choctaw, Osage, Seneca and Quapaw nations or tribes of Indians and provided for trade between Republics of Texas and Mexico, signed at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.". Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  33. ↑ 26 Stat. 81, at 94-97
  34. ↑ "Organic Act, 1890, Oklahoma Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History". Retrieved 2012-01-30.

Further reading

Primary sources

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1921 Collier's Encyclopedia article Indian Territory.
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