Mila MacDonald, age 13, of DeKalb, I11., for her question:
WHERE WAS 'INDIAN TERRITORY'?
A region west of Arkansas that the government set aside for the residence of Indians from 1830 until 1906 was called Indian Territory. Indians moved to this region from their homes east of the Mississippi River as part of a policy to move all Eastern Indians to new homes on the Great Plains, west of the 95th degree of longitude.
The move of the Indians was done because of the pressure of white settlers who wanted to take over the lands on which the Indians had lived. The name "Indian Territory" was sometimes applied loosely to the whole area on the Great Plains to which the various Indian tribes moved. But it was used more correctly for an area almost identical with the present state of Oklahoma.
It was to this Indian Territory from southeastern states that the government moved the Five Civilized Tribes: Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.
The Indian Territory had no unified political organization. The Indians were permitted to govern themselves as long as they kept the peace.
In 1866, the tribes were required to give up the western part of their territory to the United States for the use of other Indians. This was partly to punish them for helping the South during the Civil War. Reservations in this region were set aside at various times for the Osage, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, the Wichita, the Kiowa and the Comanche.
Some of the lands in this region not assigned as Indian reservations were opened to white settlement in 1889. So many white settlers came in that the Territory of Oklahoma, in the western part of the present state of Oklahoma, was organized during the following year.
The Dawes Act of, 1887 broke up tribal land holdings. In 1893, Congress created the Dawes Commission to help settle problems with the Five Civilized Tribes. Under the Curtis Act, Congress did away with tribal laws and courts in 1898, and brought the Indians under U.S. laws.
An act in 1901 made all the Indians of the Indian Territory citizens of the United States. Provisions were made for the incorporation and government of all the towns.
By 1900, the population of the Indian Territory had grown to nearly 400,000, with six times as many whites as Indians. The demand for state government was strong. A constitution for the proposed states of Sequoyah was approved by the people in 1905. But Congress had other plans.
In 1906,. Congress passed an enabling act by which Oklahoma and Indian Territory could become a single state. Under the terms of this act, the state of Oklahoma was admitted to the Union on November 16, 1907 the Indian Territory ceased to exist.