Boudinot died in Fort Smith on September 27, 1890, just a year after the first . Land . On February 17, 1879, in a letter to the Chicago Times, Boudinot claimed that fourteen million acres of Indian Territory, including the Unassigned Lands, should be considered public domain and opened to non-Indian settlers. And this of course was the famous purchase of the entire Louisiana Territory made by the Thomas Jefferson administration from Napoleon Bonaparte and the French government. And then 160 acres or six feet they didn't-- nobody cared. So Jackson is really regarded in mostly--by most historians as a very effective President, as a good President. Most of the members of the Five Tribes objected to the idea of selling their land and moving hundreds of miles away. They said that this would help everyone. And so--but then of course then you have the complete opposite of that is the Homestead Act where people are specifically working to get their own 160 acres. So how did they--? "Then people went out like flies out of a sugar casket. This event became known as the first Oklahoma land rush. So these emissaries really were faced with a difficult decision which was: do we really have the authority to basically say yes well give you an additional 6 million dollars over what we'd been authorized to spend. Sometimes referred to as the "Trail of Tears," this brutal migration to Indian Territory resulted in thousands of deaths and trauma for the survivors. Jackson then used the signed agreement to force the entire tribe to move. They said both ways of living could not exist together for very long. As we crossed the line, squatters sprang out of the woods on every side and it was evident from the appearance of some of them that they had been in hiding for weeks. But those-- thats where the first two initial land offices were built in the territory. The first three, the 1889 the 91 and the 93 they used basically the same system they used in-- that we've been talking about where people just lined up and they just blew the bugle or the cannon and people just made a mad dash and got whatever they could. With-- the land rush is sort of the climactic scene in the movie. To be there to get land on April 22, 1889. So this is really where the history of the land rush really begins, not in 1889 but in 1803. This law instructed the president to negotiate with the tribes and arrange for their removal to Indian Territory. I remember something about a stake or a flag on a stick. So Im not-- wasnt much of a math major, but you know it doesnt take a genius to figure out that most people that are gonna be making the land rush are not gonna get land. The horsemen had the best of it from the start. The legal basis for opening the Oklahoma District, now called the Unassigned Lands, came in 1889 when, in the U.S. Congress, Illinois Rep. William Springer amended the Indian Appropriations Bill to authorize Pres. He was here. But they had been surveyed. It's magic.' At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw. The total acreage of homesteaded land was 14,865,912 which is 34% of the land in the state. Where these tribes were forcibly removed out of the Southeast and moved out to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Land Run of 1889 | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture 53 physicians, 97 lawyers, more lawyers than anything, go figure. There's your Sooners. But the 1889 is the most famous because it was the first. So it's not-- the government didn't necessarily-- although they did this at other times in other places. Because some tribal factions with the Confederacy during the war, the US government viewed all of the tribes as enemies who should be punished. But they farmed differently; their farming practices were different. But anyway, they did purchase Louisiana for 15 million dollars. The Opening of Oklahoma Before the Land Runs Indian Territory and the Five Tribes. April 22, 1889 was the day that bill set for the day that those lands would officially be opened. The movement gained momentum in 1887 and 1888 when the Santa Fe Railroad constructed a line that ran from Arkansas City, Kansas, directly through the heart of the Oklahoma country to Gainesville, Texas. This created tremendous runs as individuals rushed to stake their claims to surveyed sections of land. And so of course, 1803 being 1803 there wasnt any opportunity to send Jefferson an email or call him on his cell phone or anything [chuckle] like that. And then obviously the one on the right here is shortly thereafter. Because when people made a homestead claim, whether it was in Oklahoma or anywhere else. The line was continuous for many miles and the dust rolled over them and all were of one color of grime. On September 16, 1893, the largest land run in history begins with more than 100,000 people pouring into the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma to claim valuable land that had once belonged to Native . Benjamin Harrison to proclaim the two-million-acre region open for settlement. But it's a pretty interesting chapter in American history. It worked out to about 3 cents an acre. "Nine tenths of these people made settlement upon the land illegally. Its just to give you an idea of what land officers were and what they were all about. They just open settlement on that. Listen to a recorded reading of this page. We had seen the sight of the century.". It was a little different then for-- like sometimes when people come here to Homestead [National Monument of America] they think Daniel Freeman who homesteaded this property where the park is built. Basically, it was an effort to turn them into Christian farmers in, sort of, the American tradition of farming. But of course, how do you survey 2 million acres of land in five weeks? Did he have to make a land rush? And then of course they plant a flag just to show everybody that someone's here now. Im not sure. They had legal systems. During an early expedition, Payne and his followers erected a stockade, platted their town, and began opening the fields for planting before soldiers from Fort Reno arrested the group and escorted them to Kansas. Date Released ", And then one last from the Manhattan Kansas National List, another newspaper. Most leaders and people in the United States deeply objected to tribal members refusal to accept private property. This policy toward different tribes, especially the nomadic Plains tribes who ranged over large territories to sustain their populations, was rooted in an American objection to different tribal beliefs about land, its proper use, and whether land can be private property. Well it's government land now. So just to make this a little [laughs] make it a little--put it in a language everybody can relate to Oklahoma football has this whole thing about Boomer Sooner. This whole movie was about these Irish immigrants coming to the United States and at the end of the movie-- the climax of the movie is they make the Oklahoma land rush. "There was a loud whistle from the engine answered by a shout from the train and we were in Oklahoma. What It Was Like Taking Part In The Oklahoma Land Rush Of 1889 So you can image what happened. About 820,000 square miles for 15 million dollars. This is where we get the--sort of the famous Trail of Tears. And when it had drifted away before the gentle breeze, the horses, and wagons, and men were tearing across the open country like fiends. North American tribes, c. 1700 (map courtesy of PBS Learning Media). So this is kind of a--sort of an anomaly in homesteading history as far as I can tell. By 1901 they had sort of gone to more of a lottery system. And they had soldiers doing a lot of the-- who didn't know anything about surveying. At high noon they were allowed to enter the area and claim the land. I mean, he had gone in at noon, and he got to a place and there was a guy already there who had already plowed a field. And there really werent that many other cases, that Ive read about at least, in other parts of the country where something like this happened. The September 16, 1893, Cherokee Outlet Opening was Oklahoma's fourth and largest land run. The military draft and the guy has the blindfold on and he's reaching into like fish bowl or something. Homesteading ended in 1976, except in Alaska where it ended in 1986. Boudinot died in Fort Smith on September 27, 1890, just a year after the first land run. The 1889 rush is the most famous because it was the first, but it was not the only Oklahoma land rush. The land in Indian Territory was owned by the tribe as a whole and all the citizens had access to use it in providing for their families. Oklahoma Historical Society800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, Oklahoma City, OK 73105 | 405-521-2491Site Index | Contact Us | Privacy | Press Room | Website Inquiries, Get Updates in Your Inbox Keep up to date with our weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. And we are-- so we're kind of coming up on that anniversary and it was a very convenient time to do this type of a program. It would be Oklahoma's fourth and largest land run. Just a few-- another good quote here. Thats something that a lot of people dont realize when you talk about the Oklahoma land rush, is that these people, they were homesteaders. Woman 2 in Audience: When they went in there. So if youve seen those old pictures like during World War One and World War Two when they're doing the draft. Roughly 12,000 quarter sections or twelve thousand 160-acre plots of land were set to be available on April 22nd and there were approximately 50,000 people there vying for them. It's all in slow motion and Tom Cruise has got his flag. So it was kind of tricky and I mean if treatment of American Indians is basically a black eye in this country's history. You've--theyve all got their 160 acres and now there's millions of acres of excess. People that were basically going in and living-- getting on to somebody else's claim and claiming it as their own. And it's very violent. As far as what kind of crops they grow today. I know they claimed it. Their own kind of little piece. There was an $18 fee to file the application to get a plot of land. So as long as there was more land that could be taken there was more land that could be given away to homesteaders. "Notwithstanding the assertions of the soldiers that every Boomer had been driven out of Oklahoma. And sure enough, he came back and they got married. A few photos and such. Not just the city of New Orleans, but the entire territory. But they lived on good farmland and all of the white farmers around them wanted that land. Either way theyre happy [chuckles] I guess. Now in Oklahoma, the five tribes, the Five Civilized Tribes didnt actually have to adhere to the Dawes Act until after the turn of the 20th century. Or how many of those cases there were, but it certainly did happen. They built two--initially built two land offices at Guthrie and Kingfisher. To get ready to start taking in these massive numbers of homestead claims. And then the one quote here talks about that there were a good number of women. And of course, they get land. And so I think they're very good at showing that. Jefferson had actually sent emissaries to Paris not to buy Louisiana, but really to buy just the city of New Orleans which of course we all know is sort of at the bottom of the modern state of Louisiana. Now there were five so-called Civilized Tribes that were directly affected by the Oklahoma Land Rush. Hollywood certainly get better at that. Terrorism struck Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb exploded and destroyed part of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in the downtown area, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500.In the protracted economic crises of the early 21st century, Oklahoma experienced gains in areas such as renewable-energy development but loss. And they were told that the lands will be theirs as long as the stars shine and the rivers flow. I don't really know. Land Run of 1893 - Wikipedia And basically, it says that almost 2 million acres of land in Oklahoma is gonna be open to settlement because these tribes have turned these lands back over to the U.S. government. On April 20, 2008 Historian Todd Arrington gave a presentation about the history of the Oklahoma Land Rushes. This is from the 1893 rushing in the Cherokee Strip. So anyway, anybody have any questions at all? Oklahoma Land Rush and Statehood. The citizens of the Five Tribes, once removed, would be able to live as they wanted without the intense pressures of their neighbors demanding their land. Oklahoma Land Rush | History | tutor2u The first land run was in the "Unassigned Lands" in the central part of the state, in . So anyway, so before the rush you have, like I said you have these massive--this massive influx of people coming into these towns. A year after the Oklahoma Land Rush, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the frontier was closed. This doubled the size of the United States and increased the number of indigenous groups within its boundaries. But including like the most beautiful homesteader on the prairie, Nicole Kidman. The Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889, by John Steuart Curry depicts the smaller, earlier land rush of 1889 The 1893 Land Rush was the largest of the four sponsored by the government, this time across the Cherokee grazing lands of the northwest corner of the Territory. Cleveland had basically said he thought it was a good idea. The number of settlers surpassed available land and they soon realized that some snuck. Where a very specific piece of ground was opened up on a very specific date, at a very specific time. First come, first. And they are now encouraging white settlers, white homesteaders to come and actually take land in Oklahoma. Todd: Oh agriculture. As it was clearly impossible for a man on foot to outrun a horseman the inference is plain that Oklahoma had been entered hours before the appointed time." But the people who went in too soon were the Sooners. So there have been lots of movies that depict the land rush. In August of 1879 he began organizing settlers to move into the Unassigned Lands. Certainly, their ideas of land ownership were very different than the U.S., than the mainstream of U.S. society. One is there was a good amount of fraud involved in homesteading. But also, to help with surveys. And they would be officially opened at noon. Many people argued that the different tribes did not use their land well, and it was wrong to allow them to keep control of it when there were Americans who wanted to intensively farm the land. But of course, if you take each head of household on these reservations and you give them 160 acres at the end youre going to have a lot of land left over that suddenly these Indians dont need, right. Here's a good one about the trains. There was a movie, I don't know 15-16 years ago [1992], Far and Away. Not all settled in Indian Territory at the this time. I mean they were just dots on a map. The announcement impressed Frederick Jackson Turner, a young historian at . I dont give a damn which. The 1890 census had shown that a frontier line, a point beyond which the population density was less than two persons per square mile, no longer existed. And now it's their homestead. But the flag-- the idea of the flag was really just to plant it there so that everybody else knew that this land was taken. I couldn't tell you in Oklahoma. So it was a very different situation than what happened in most areas of country. And made each person the head of a household. Yeah and of course, that's very dramatic in the movie. I mean it was it-- 'cause it was just chaos. Once this sparsely settled land was added to the country, some people suggested a change in policy toward the Indian nations who lived amongst the people of the US in the heavily populated east. In 1891, 1893, 1901 and 1911 there were additional land rushes. Toward the end of the 19th century, . Single women, widows, divorcees, what they called deserted wives whose husbands had run off on them. So you can imagine how some of those surveys looked like. That all these people just made this mad dash for Kansas, and Texas, and Arkansas, states that border Oklahoma to get ready. The Boomers were the people that were gonna be taking land legally. The Land Run itself began at noon on September 16, 1893, with an estimated 100,000 participants hoping to stake claim to part of the 6 million acres and 40,000 homesteads on what had formerly been Cherokee grazing land. So any other questions? And then really, almost literally by the night-- the end of the day on April 22nd all of these towns that are still in existence in Oklahoma were-- had been begun. I don't know if they deal with it either. It was nothing like that. And so I kind of tongue in cheek here say the stars stopped shining and the river stopped flowing. That actually is almost quoted from a gentleman that speaks in the new film. The last barrier of savagery" That being the Indians of course. They are pretty serious about football down there too. It's been too long since I've seen it. So anyway, at noon on-- they blew the-- they blew revelry on the bugle and the rush started. Which even in 1803 was not a bad price for real estate. They had--some of them even had slaver which was obviously very, very common in the Southern United States at this time. Woman 2 in Audience: So they started agriculture. So there actually were people that were going into Oklahoma on trains. The Seminole Nation retreated further into their territory in Florida and fought the Second Seminole War in their attempt to stay on their land. Title, 8523 West State Highway 4 Andrew Jackson, who was president at the time of these decisions and a supporter of removal, ignored the Supreme Court. There's a lot of impacts on the people that were making the rush. They actually allowed a number of trains to go in as well because there was train track that had already been laid into Okla-- into the Indian Territory. Subscribe Now, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Heritage Preservation Grant Program. "Unlike Rome, the city of Guthrie was built in a day." And thats--the surveys were important because that is how the government kept track of who was where and what was available and what wasnt available. [chuckles]. Thats really neat. Some people snuck onto the land early and hid in order to lay claim to best areas of land first. While many people at the beginning of the 1800s believed it would take a very long time to fill the continent, it did not. How did they know there are 160 acres of land? In 1884 he went on a speaking tour to raise money for the Boomer Movement. And long before the majority had quit running, train number 2 pulled in quite as heavily loaded as its predecessor. The government forced the Five Tribes to renegotiate their treaties. The 1890 Oklahoma Organic Act organized the western half of Indian Territory and a strip of country known as No Man's Land into Oklahoma Territory. A loss in a Supreme Court case in 1868 led Boudinot to believe that American Indians should seek the protection of the United States Constitution and secure property rights as individuals rather than through tribal ownership. [1] So and again in the film I think that shows up very well as well. They argued that Indian nations were not as "evolved." Relevance Right as they blow the bugle, and everybody takes off it's about three seconds of two natives standing there just kind of looking at each other going What? And that's it. But other than that, I'm not real sure. This meant that the federal government had to get the tribes to agree to removal, or the government would violate the Constitution. After moving to Kansas in 1858, Payne was elected to the Kansas Legislature and eventually held minor political posts in Washington, where he learned about the possibility of obtaining land if the Oklahoma country was opened to settlement. But they were giving away land in Oklahoma well into the 20th century because the government kept taking land from native tribes.
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