ok gideon you have upset me you piece of filth

Now, now, boys will be boys!

In 1889 the opening to white settlement of a choice portion of Indian Territory in Oklahoma set off one of the most bizarre and chaotic episodes of town founding in world history. A railroad line crossed the territory, and water towers and other requirements for steam rail operation were located at intervals along the tracks that connected Arkansas and Texas. Two places--Oklahoma Station and Guthrie Station--seemed particularly well located for eventual urban development. In the months before the territory was opened, individuals and groups representing townsite companies scouted these locations and prepared town plans for these sites.
Congress had failed to provide for any form of civil government. Although the area had been surveyed into the standard system of 6-mile square townships and mile-square sections of 640 acres each, no sites for towns had been designated let alone laid out in streets and lots. The rules simply provided that at noon on April 22 persons gathered at the Arkansas or Texas borders would be permitted to enter, seek a parcel of unclaimed land, and file a claim of ownership in accordance with the applicable Federal laws governing the disposal of the public domain. Federal marshals, railroad personnel, and other persons lawfully in the territory before the opening ("legal sooners") were prohibited from filing land claims--a provision that was more violated than observed.

This account is by a trained observer who was present on the day the territory was opened and who remained there for some time afterwards. It appeared less than a month later in the pages of Harper's Weekly and provides a vivid picture of what occurred. It documents the massive stupidity of federal policy with regard to the disposal of the public domain, but it scarcely more than hints at the tragic consequences to follow for the Indian tribes who had been forcibly relocated to Oklahoma under solumn promises that their land would be theirs forever.


i may have gotten the day wrong but the land was still free.



this is true but my statement was




at the time indians were not citizens of the usa. at least not the ones still living in tribes. or in the indian terriotory.




if she/he is smarter than me you had better go and put your head in the ground.

A region and former territory of the south-central United States, mainly in present-day Oklahoma. It was set aside by the government as a homeland for forcibly displaced Native Americans in 1834. The western section was opened to general settlement in 1889 and became part of the Oklahoma Territory in 1890. The two territories were merged in 1907 to form the state of Oklahoma.


you see gid you were only partly right. the indian territory was not given away. only the oklahoma territory was. and yes there were tribes there too.




WWW Link


The land west of the Mississippi River that was set aside by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 for relocated Native American tribes. The land, which included the area in present-day Oklahoma north and east of the Red River, Kansas, and Nebraska, came to be known as Indian Territory, though it was never an organized territory as others were. The term is also used more specifically to denote the area to which the Five Civilized Tribes (Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Chickasaw) were forced to move by treaties between 1820 and 1845. Other tribes moved there also, but each remained self-governing. The size of Indian Territory was reduced by the creation of Kansas and Nebraska territories in 1854, and its western half was ceded to the United States in 1866, eventually becoming the Territory of Oklahoma. Under the Dawes Act of 1887, individual landholdings were granted to Native Americans who renounced their tribal holdings, and the Dawes Commission, appointed in 1893, sought to reorganize Indian Territory by abolishing tribal land titles in favor of individual allotments. This effort succeeded in 1906. The next year Indian Territory and the Territory of Oklahoma were merged to create the state of Oklahoma.

With the passage of the Pacific Railway Bill during the Civil War, the Union Pacific Railway Company and Central Pacific were given millions of acres of land to complete a railroad all the way to the Pacific Ocean, one company starting at the West Coast and the other farther east. Both lines met at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, where the ceremonial "golden spike" was driven with a silver-plated hammer to commemorate the historic event.

Shortly after this, however, land grants ceased to be public policy, because many people had begun to question giving away so much land to private companies. Between 1850 and 1870, over 129 million acres -- seven percent of the continental United States -- had been ceded to 80 railroad companies. Most of that land was west of the Mississippi. The value of grants amounted to more than half a billion dollars, a total even greater than it seems today, since the dollar was worth much more then.*



one thing you have to remember is that the united states government at the time was trying to wipe out the Indian tribes. not the people but the tribes. that is why the buffalo hunts were used. to starve the tribes out.

I grew up ON the Chisolm Trail in Oklahoma, danielost. I know my history on that front.

But it's a red herring issue. As are pretty much all of your stupid, petty little arguments.

That was your statement, it was never mine. Try reading what is written - not what you want to read.