Land run

Last updated

The only photo of a Land run in progress, taken in 1893 CAC CC 001 18 34 0000 3397.jpg
The only photo of a Land run in progress, taken in 1893

A land run or land rush was an event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to homestead on a first-arrival basis. Lands were opened and sold first-come or by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The settlers, no matter how they acquired occupancy, purchased the land from the United States Land Office. For former Indian lands, the Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms. The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the most prominent of the land runs while the Land Run of 1893 was the largest. The opening of the former Kickapoo area in 1895 was the last use of a land run in the present area of Oklahoma.

Contents

In Oklahoma

After years of raids—led by the leaders of the Boomers activist movement such as David L. Payne—into the central area of what would become the U.S. state of Oklahoma, Congress finally agreed to open what was dubbed the Unassigned Lands. Seven land runs in all took place in Oklahoma, beginning with the initial and most famous Land Rush of April 22, 1889, which gave rise to the terms "Eighty-Niner" (a veteran of that run) and "Sooner." That area led to today's Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of Oklahoma. [1]

The nearly two million acres of land opened up to white settlement was located in Indian Territory, a large area that once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 eventually led to the Trail of Tears. Creek and Seminole tribes were granted area known before the Land Run as the Unassigned Lands. Some American Indian tribes signed a treaty of alliance with the Confederacy in 1861. Initially considered unsuitable for white colonization, Indian Territory was thought to be an ideal place to relocate Native Americans who were removed from their traditional lands to make way for white settlement. The relocations began in 1817, and by the 1880s, Indian Territory was a new home to a variety of tribes, including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Apache.

The Land Run of September 22, 1891, opened the Iowa, Sac and Fox, Potawatomi, and Shawnee lands to settlement. The land run opened 6,097 plots of 160 acres (65 ha) each of former reservation land. [1] On the following day, a land run was held to settle Tecumseh, the pre-designated location of the county seat of County B, later renamed as Pottawatomie County. On September 28, 1891, another land run was held to settle Chandler, the pre-designated location of the county seat of County A, later renamed as Lincoln County.

The Land Run of April 19, 1892, opened the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands.

The Land Run of September 16, 1893 was known as the Cherokee Strip Land Run. It opened 8,144,682.91 acres (12,726 square miles or about 3.3 million hectares) to settlement. The land was purchased from the Cherokees. It was the largest land run in U.S. history, four times larger than the Land Rush of 1889. [2] The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center museum at the eastern edge of Enid, Oklahoma commemorates this event.

The final land run in Oklahoma was the Land Run of 1895 to settle the Kickapoo lands. Each run had exhibited many problems and the Federal Government deemed the run to be an inefficient way to distribute land to would-be settlers. After 1895, the government distributed land by sealed-bid auctions. Major openings by this method included Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation (1901), the Wichita-Caddo Reservation (1901), and the Big Pasture (1906). [3]

There was one land run in the 20th century, but on a much smaller scale, held to select lots in the community of Arcadia, on August 6, 1901. This was similar to the run to settle Chandler in 1891. [4]

Legacy

In honor of Oklahoma's Centennial of statehood, sculptor Paul Moore won the commission for the Oklahoma Centennial Land Run Monument. [5] As Moore completed elements of the 45-piece monument, such as horses and riders, wagons and horse teams, dogs, and others, they were installed in lower Bricktown, Oklahoma City. To be completed at a future date the monument covers approximately 365 feet (111 m), making it overall one of the largest bronze sculptures in the world. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Cimarron</i> (novel) 1930 novel by Edna Ferber

Cimarron is a novel by Edna Ferber, published in April 1930 and based on development in Oklahoma after the Land Rush. The book was adapted into a critically acclaimed film of the same name, released in 1931 through RKO Pictures. The story was again adapted for the screen by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was released in 1960, to meager success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Territory</span> Land set aside for relocation of Native Americans

Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as a sovereign independent state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Territory</span> Organized incorporated territory of the United States from 1890 to 1907

The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sooners</span> Settlers in Oklahoma, now a demonym

Sooners is the name given to settlers who entered the Unassigned Lands in what is now the state of Oklahoma before the official start of the Land Rush of 1889. The Unassigned Lands were a part of Indian Territory that, after a lobbying campaign, were to be opened to American settlement in 1889. President Benjamin Harrison officially proclaimed the Unassigned Lands open to settlement on April 22, 1889. As people lined up around the borders of the Oklahoma District, they waited for the official opening. It was not until noon that it officially was opened to settlement. The name derived from the "sooner clause" of Proclamation 288 — Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory, which stated that anyone who entered and occupied the land prior to the opening time would be denied the right to claim land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David L. Payne</span> American politician

David Lewis Payne was an American soldier and pioneer. Payne is considered by some to be the "Father of Oklahoma" for his work in opening the state to settlement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherokee Outlet</span> Section of the Indian Territory (now the U.S. state of Oklahoma) reserved for the Cherokee nation

The Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma in the United States. It was a 60-mile-wide (97 km) parcel of land south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border between 96 and 100°W. The Cherokee Outlet was created in 1836. The United States forced the Cherokee Nation of Indians to cede to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for a reservation and an "outlet" in Indian Territory. At the time of its creation, the Cherokee Outlet was about 225 miles (360 km) long. The cities of Enid, Woodward, Ponca City, and Perry were later founded within the boundaries of what had been the Cherokee Outlet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unassigned Lands</span> Lands in Oklahoma that were not assigned to any native tribes

The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883, it was bounded by the Cherokee Outlet on the north, several relocated Indian reservations on the east, the Chickasaw lands on the south, and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reserve on the west. The area amounted to 1,887,796.47 acres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Rush of 1889</span> 1889 land run in Oklahoma, US

The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of former Indian Territory, which had earlier been assigned to the Creek and Seminole peoples. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the present-day US state of Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma</span> Federally recognized Kickapoo tribe in the United States

The Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States. There are also Kickapoo tribes in Kansas, Texas, and Mexico. The Kickapoo are a Woodland tribe, who speak an Algonquian language. They are affiliated with the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, and the Mexican Kickapoo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Oklahoma</span> History of the U.S. state

The history of Oklahoma refers to the history of the state of Oklahoma and the land that the state now occupies. Areas of Oklahoma east of its panhandle were acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, while the Panhandle was not acquired until the U.S. land acquisitions following the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Run of 1893</span> Opening of part of the Oklahoma Territory to American settlers

In U.S. history, the Land Run of 1893, also known as the Cherokee Outlet Opening or the Cherokee Strip Land Run, marked the opening to settlement of the Cherokee Outlet in the Oklahoma Territory's fourth and largest land run. It was part of what would later become the U.S. state of Oklahoma in 1907.

The Land Run of 1891 was a set of horse races to settle land acquired by the federal government through the opening of several small Indian reservations in Oklahoma Territory. The race involved approximately 20,000 homesteaders, who gathered to stake their claims on 6,097 plots, of 160 acres (0.65 km2) each, of former reservation land.

The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe is the federally recognized Native American tribe of Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache in Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Run of 1892</span>

The Land Run of 1892 was the opening of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation to settlement in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. One of seven in Oklahoma, it occurred on April 19, 1892, and opened up land that would become Blaine, Custer, Dewey, Washita, and Roger Mills counties. The land run also opened up what would become part of Ellis County, but was designated County "E" and then Day County prior to statehood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Run of 1895</span>

The Land Run of 1895 was the smallest and last land run in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It came about with an agreement between the Kickapoo people and the federal government that gave individual Kickapoos 22,640 acres (91.6 km2). The federal government purchased the remaining 183,440 acres (742.4 km2) and opened them up to settlers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boomers (Oklahoma settlers)</span> Settlers of Oklahoma when it was called "Unassigned Lands"

"Boomers" is the name used for two groups of settlers in the Southern United States in what is now the state of Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area</span> Statistical entity

Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherokee Commission</span> Three-person bi-partisan body created by President Benjamin Harrison

The Cherokee Commission, was a three-person bi-partisan body created by President Benjamin Harrison to operate under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, as empowered by Section 14 of the Indian Appropriations Act of March 2, 1889. Section 15 of the same Act empowered the President to open land for settlement. The Commission's purpose was to legally acquire land occupied by the Cherokee Nation and other tribes in the Oklahoma Territory for non-indigenous homestead acreage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Organic Act</span> Statute used by the United States Congress

An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history an explanation of the Oklahoma Organic Act needs a historic perspective. In general, the Oklahoma Organic Act may be viewed as one of a series of legislative acts, from the time of Reconstruction, enacted by Congress in preparation for the creation of a united State of Oklahoma. The Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory that were Organized incorporated territories of the United States out of the old "unorganized" Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Organic Act was one of several acts whose intent was the assimilation of the tribes in Oklahoma and Indian Territories through the elimination of tribes' communal ownership of property.

References

  1. 1 2 Oklahoma Land Run Openings 1889–1907 (accessed October 6, 2013).
  2. Green, Donald E., "Settlement Patterns," Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, 2009. Accessed March 1, 2015.
  3. Everett, Dianna. "Land Openings." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed July 22, 2016.
  4. Young, Roy B. "Apache," Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed September 1, 2016.
  5. Moore, Paul. "Monuments". crownartsinc.com. Crown Arts Inc. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  6. Centennial Land Run Monument Archived June 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine , City of Oklahoma City. (accessed October 6, 2013)

Further reading