USA Oklahoma - The History : USA  

USA Oklahoma - The History - Travel guide

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USA Oklahoma - The History

The History

The 1st European was Spanish explorer Francisco Coronado who almost certainly crossed what is now Oklahoma in 1541 during his search for the "Lost City of Gold." Hernando De Soto may have visited eastern Oklahoma, while Juan de Oñate later passed through western Oklahoma, French traders from Louisiana also visited Oklahoma.

The first European trading post was allegedly established at Salina by the Chouteau family of St. Louis before Oklahoma was given to the Unites States as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

When Europeans first visited the region, the Wichita and other relatively sedentary Indian tribes inhabited the east. Western Oklahoma was dominated by Plains tribes, notably the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache. Things began to change when eastern tribes began to move westward into Oklahoma, most of them pushed out by white settlers.

Osage Indians settled in the rich woodlands of northeastern Oklahoma around 1796. After they were forced to cede their lands to the United States in 1825, the Osage moved to Kansas territory. When Kansas was opened to white settlers i n 1870, Congress sold the rest of the Osage lands, turned the money over to the tribe and opened a reservation for them which later became Osage County. After oil was struck on this land, the Osage became the wealthiest people per capita in the United States.

The Quapaw tribe sold 45 million acres of their land south of the Arkansas river to the U.S. government for $18,000 before 1820. The United States took the rest of their land in 1824 when four drunk chiefs ceded the property for $500 each. The homeless tribe settled near the Red River on land received from the Caddos, a tribe from Texas. Scattered by successive crop failures, the survivors reorganized in 1890, obtaining a sliver of property in northeastern Indian Territory. They later profited from the discovery of zinc and lead on this land.

The lands which the Osage and Quapaw had ceded to the United States government were set aside for Indians who were being relocated from their tribal homes in the Southeast. After the War of 1812 the U.S. government invited the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Indians to move west into what would become the Indian Territory. Later, they were forced to move.

By 1856, each of the Five Civilized Tribes established territorial boundaries in the frontier. They began carving farms and cultures out of the Oklahoma wilderness, creating a society which continues to influence Oklahoma.

Oklahoma's Indians were generally left in peace by whites until the Civil War. During the war, Indians who tried to remain neutral were attacked by Confederate forces. After the Civil War, the federal government punished the Five Civilized Tribes for siding with the Confederacy by taking away the western part of Indian Territory, which would become Oklahoma Territory.

Chief Black Kettle was a Southern Chief chief who gained famed as an outspoken proponent of peace with white men. He was among several chiefs who signed the peace treaty of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, in 1867, which assigned the Arapahos, Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas, and Plains Apaches to reservations in the Indian Territory. The Indians were to receive certain goods in return, but the government didn't live up to its promises. Several bands of Cheyenne and Arapaho grew impatient, carrying out raids on government installations and many inhabitants.

Just before dawn on November 27, 1868, Lt. Col. George A. Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry in an attack on a peaceful Indian encampment. Among the dead were Black Kettle and his wife. The massacre is remembered as the Battle of the Washita, commemorated by Washita Battlefield National Historic Site.

The Washita massacre was the last major confrontation between whites and Indians in Oklahoma. Custer later met his end at the hands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in Montana.

Another symbol of resistance was the famous Apache warrior Geronimo. He battled white invaders in the Southwest until he was captured and incarcerated in Oklahoma, where he died of old age.

The Oklahoma Territory was established on March 2, 1890. It included the "Panhandle," a narrow strip of territory taken from Texas by the Compromise of 1850. It has long been a no-man’s land where settlers came in undisturbed.

Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were united under America on November 16, 1907.