Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a South Central state of the United States (with strong Southern, Western, and Midwestern influences) and its U.S. postal abbreviation is OK; others abbreviate the state's name Okla. As of 2000, the population is 3,450,654.

History

Pre-European Amerindian cultures

Oklahoma was inhabited by Native American tribes including the Kitikiti'sh (Wichita) Quapaw, Caddo and Osage. Descendants of these peoples still live in the state.

Related Topics:
Native American - Wichita - Quapaw - Caddo - Osage

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In the 16th century Spanish explorers became the first Europeans to visit the area.

Related Topics:
16th century - Spanish

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Later, Oklahoma was part of the vast territorial swapping between European powers France and Spain.

Related Topics:
European - France - Spain

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"Five Civilized Tribes"

In the 1830s Oklahoma, as the Indian Territory, served as the relocation area for the policy of Indian Removal started by Andrew Jackson.

Related Topics:
1830s - Indian Territory - Indian Removal - Andrew Jackson

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The end of the Trail of Tears (Tsa La Gi) was "Indian Territory". There were already many tribes living in the territory, whites, and escaped slaves as well.

Related Topics:
Trail of Tears - Tsa La Gi - Slaves

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The "Five Civilized Tribes," so named due to their early adaptations to Christianity and European clothing, technology, and trade, were not the only ones forced to Oklahoma. Nations such as the Delaware, from the northeast U.S., Kiowa, Comanche, and others were forced to move to Oklahoma.

Related Topics:
Five Civilized Tribes - Delaware - Kiowa - Comanche

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The name Oklahoma comes from the language of the Choctaw people, who were removed from Mississippi to "Indian Territory" by the United States Government in the early to mid-1800s. "Oklahoma" is a combination of two Choctaw words: okla which means "people," (as in the term "Miliki okla," which means "American people"), and homa, "homma," or "humma," various spellings of the Choctaw word which means, among other denotations, "red." The name was suggested by Allen Wright, Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation from 1866 to 1870.

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

Related Topics:
Tulsa - Tahlequah - Muskogee

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During the American Civil War many tribes were internally split between Confederates and the United States. However, in 1861 the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Quapaws, Senecas, Caddos, Wichitas, Osage Nation, and Shawnees signed treaties of alliance with the Confederacy. There were several battles fought in Oklahoma.

Related Topics:
American Civil War - Confederates - 1861 - Cherokee - Creek - Choctaw - Chickasaw - Seminole - Quapaw - Seneca - Caddo - Wichita - Osage Nation - Shawnee - Battles

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Cowboys and Indians

After the Civil War, 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 railroads to cross Indian lands.

Related Topics:
1866 - Railroad

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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.

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In the 1870s a movement began by people wanting to settle the government lands in the Indian Territory under the Homestead Act of 1862. They referred to the Unassigned Lands as Oklahoma and to themselves as Boomers.

Related Topics:
1870s - Homestead Act

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In the 1880s, early settlers of the state's very sparsely populated Panhandle region tried to form the Cimarron Territory, but lost a lawsuit against the federal government, prompting a judge in Paris, Texas, 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 No Man's Land until statehood arrived decades later.

Related Topics:
1880s - Panhandle region - Cimarron Territory

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In 1884, in United States vs. Payne, the United States District Court in Topeka, Kansas, 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 the Congress soon enacted laws authorizing settlement.

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Congress passed the Dawes Act, 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 Republican officials of giving preferential treatment to ex-slaves in land disputes.

Related Topics:
Dawes Act - Republican

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Land runs

On March 231889, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation by the U.S. Congress which would open up the Unassigned Lands (some 2 million acres (8,000 km²), for settlement on April 22nd. It was to be the first of a number of "Land runs" (due to widespread cheating later land openings were conducted by means of a lottery). Some of the settlers were called "Sooners" because they had already staked their land claims before the land was officially opened for settlement.

Related Topics:
March 23 - 1889 - Benjamin Harrison - U.S. Congress - Unassigned Lands - Land run - Sooners

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The Organic Act of 1890 created the Oklahoma Territory out of the Unassigned Lands and No Man's Land.

Related Topics:
Organic Act - Oklahoma Territory - No Man's Land

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In 1893 the government purchased the rights to settle the "Cherokee Outlet," or "Cherokee Strip," from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Outlet was part of the lands ceded to the government in the 1866 treaty but with the Cherokees retaining access. Chicago meat-packing plants had leased it from the Cherokees for huge cattle ranches. The Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement by land run in 1894. Also, in 1893, Congress set up the Dawes Commission 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 Indian Territory.

Related Topics:
Cherokee Outlet - Cherokee Strip - Dawes - Indian Territory

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Statehood

On November 161907, Oklahoma Territory combined with Indian Territory to become the 46th U.S. state.

Related Topics:
November 16 - 1907 - U.S. state

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In the early 1900s the oil business began to get underway. Huge pools of underground oil were discovered in places like Glenpool. 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, including one mansion which was converted into the Philbrook Museum of Art.

Related Topics:
1900s - Oil - Glenpool - 1920s - Philbrook Museum of Art

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For Oklahoma, the early 1900s were also somewhat turbulent politically. Many different groups had flooded into the state and were trying to figure out how to live. There were also "black towns", in which blacks tried to make a life of their own, separate from whites. The white towns were also segregated. Northern Tulsa was known as Black Wall Street because of the vibrant business, cultural, and religious community that had sprung up there.

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The Oklahoma Socialist Party did achieve a fair degree of success in this era (the 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 Marxist 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 Eugene Debs some of his highest vote counts in the nation.

Related Topics:
Socialist Party - Jim Crow - Marxist - Eugene Debs

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

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The Industrial Workers of the World tried to gain headway during this period, but achieved little success. The Ku Klux Klan was also active, denouncing Blacks, Catholics, and Jews. There were several race riots, including the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the worst in American history.

Related Topics:
Industrial Workers of the World - Ku Klux Klan - Blacks - Catholics - Jews - Race riot - Tulsa Race Riot

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Dust Bowl Era

During the height of the Great Depression, drought and non-ecologically-friendly agricultural practices led to the Dust Bowl, when massive dust storms blew away the soil from large tracts of arable land and deposited it on nearby farms and ranches, distant states, the Atlantic Ocean, and even occasionally Great Britain. 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 as far-flung as Alva, Altus, and Poteau each recorded temperatures of 120 °F during the epic summer of 1936.

Related Topics:
Great Depression - Dust Bowl - Arable land - Alva - Altus - Poteau - 1936

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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 Agricultural Adjustment Act paid them to reduce production. Plantation owners throughout the American South and much of eastern and southern Oklahoma released their sharecroppers 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 California to work as migrant farm workers and, after the onset of World War II, in factories.

Related Topics:
Agricultural Adjustment Act - Sharecroppers - California

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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and songs of Woody Guthrie tell tales of woe from the era. The negative images of the "Okie" 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.

Related Topics:
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Dorothea Lange - Woody Guthrie - Okie

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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.

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Urbanization

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 Tinker Air Force Base, 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.

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The constitution of Oklahoma said it will be dry. In this century came the gradual elimination of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, first through defining non-alcholic beverages containing 3.2% alcohol or less (this effectively eliminated the Federal goverment prohibition from the 20's), then through the legalization of stronger alcoholic beverages sold only in bottles, and finally in the legalization of "liquor by the drink" in the 1980s. Currently, Oklahoma's liquor laws are still fairly unusual in that only 3.2% alcohol by weight drinks can be sold in grocery/convenience stores, while higher-alcohol-content beverages must be sold at room temperature in liquor stores with limited hours of operations 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

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In 1995 Oklahoma became the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which a Gulf War veteran named Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people.

Related Topics:
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing - Gulf War - Timothy McVeigh - Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

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Oklahoma City has also been the home of Spiritual Walk for Peace, an ongoing series of peaceful peace demonstrations in downtown Oklahoma City conducted by members of the city's religious/peace communities.

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