oklahoma history

Great Salt Plains

120 square mile salt flat in northwest Oklahoma. Salt water springs have deposited a layer of pure salt that is, at times, several feet thick. Noted by George Sibley in 1811, the salt plains became an important source of salt for the US and has contributed significantly to the Oklahoma economy.

Indian Removal Act

1830 legislation that ordered the removal of the Five Southeastern Tribes to present-day Oklahoma. Largely credited to Andrew Jackson, the Indian Removal Act changed American policy from one of coexistence to one of separation. Though the removal experiences were different for each of the Five Tribes, the end result was relocation west of the Mississippi River

Spiro Mounds

A ceremonial center of 11 mounds built by Caddoan Mound Builders in La Flore County in eastern Oklahoma. Excavations of these mounds have yielded pottery and metal artifacts, baskets, and seashell and stone ornaments which indicate these people's trade network extended to Central Mexico, Florida, the Great Lakes, and northwestern Nebraska.

Caddoan Mound Builders

A group of Indians who built a series of eleven religious ceremonial mounds in LeFlore County in eastern Oklahoma. The artifacts found in these mounds show that this civilization sat at the heart of an extensive trade network that stretched from present-day Wisconsin to Florida and even New Mexico.

Cross Timbers

An area 5 to 30 miles wide running from the southwest to the northeast across the center of the state of poor, thin red soil and base limestone which supports forests of post oak, blackjack oak, pin oak, hackberry, elm, and cottonwood trees. These trees grow so close together that they, combined with a tangled undergrowth of bush honeysuckle, briars, wild grapevines, blackberries, and buck brush, form a natural, almost impenetrable barrier between the plains to the west and the prairies and forests to the east.

Worcester v. Georgia

Case involving Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler who, in violation of a Georgia act prohibiting whites to live in Indian country without state permission, had remained as missionaries in the Cherokee Nation. They were arrested, tried, and sentenced to four years at hard labor. They appealed the decision to the Supreme Court on the ground that Georgia had no right to make laws concerning the territory of an Indian Tribe. The Supreme Court decided that Cherokee lands were not a part of Georgia within the meaning of the Constitution and that the state statute was null and void. President Jackson refused to enforce this decision

John Ross

Cherokee mixed-blood who became leader of the Traditionalist faction of the Cherokee Nation, composed predominantly of full bloods, who resisted removal and ultimately walked the "Trail of Tears." Elected principal chief of the Cherokee in the East in 1828, he remained principal chief after removal until his death immediately after the Civil War.

Seven Cities of Cibola

Fabled cities of fabulous wealth where houses had walls of gold and doors of turquoise. Spain sent Conquistadors such as Coronado North in search of these fabled cities.

Quivira

Fabled golden city near present-day Wichita, KS. It was described as a city of incredible wealth and even reported that inhabitants drank from golden cups and ate from silver plates. Coronado and several other conquistadors traveled through OK looking for this fabled city.

McIntosh Faction

Faction of the Lower Creeks who signed the Treaty of Indian Springs in 1825 which ceded Creek lands in the east for land in the west and other considerations. For this, faction leaders, including William McIntosh, were executed

Jean Pierre Choteau

French fur trader and founder of the first permanent white settlement in Oklahoma in 1796 at Salina and known as the "father of Oklahoma."

Bernard de la Harpe

Given a land grant to the Red River area north of Natchitoches, Louisiana by John Law's Company of the West, La Harpe organized an expedition to the area in 1719 to explore trade possibilities. The expedition established a fort near present-day Texarkana and from there, traveled north and west into Oklahoma as far as present-day Haskell. He held a peace council with the natives and formed an alliance with them, raising the French flag over their village.

Sequoyah

Illiterate Cherokee who, as a result of his fascination with the "talking leaves" or letters of the American soldier in the War of 1812, decided to develop a system of writing for his own people. After years of labor and disappointing setbacks, he developed the 86 character Cherokee syllabary which became the basis of the printed Cherokee language.

Opothleyaholo

Leader of the Upper Creeks who refused to sign the Treaty of Indian Springs and resisted removal. In 1826, he headed the Creek delegation which agreed to the Treaty of Washington by which the Creeks ceded their lands in Georgia in exchange for land in Indian Territory between the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers. Opotheleyahola remained a leader of the Upper Creeks after removal and led the neutral Indians north to Kansas in 1861, fighting a series of battles in northeastern Oklahoma along the way.

Long, Stephen H.

Leader of two major expeditions through the Oklahoma area. In 1817, Long was directed to find a suitable location on the Arkansas for a military post. From the mouth of the Kiamichi on the Red River, he traveled up the Kiamichi and Poteau Rivers to Belle Point on the Arkansas, where he located Fort Smith. Long was also the leader of the Long-Bell Expedition of 1820.

Domebo Mammoth Kill Site

Location near Strecker in Caddo County in southwestern Oklahoma where a skeleton of a mammoth was found with three large, man-made, "Clovis" spear points embedded in its bones. The radio-carbon dating of the bones established that the "kill" occurred around 11,000 years ago, the earliest hard evidence of man in the Oklahoma region.

Busk Festival

Native American ceremony of thanksgiving and restoring harmony. Wichita men drank black drink to induce vomiting while women light a new village fire - both acts simulated purity. The purification ritual ended with a symbolic cleansing in a nearby river.

Cherokee Pheonix

Newspaper founded by Samuel Worcester. It was published in English and Cherokee before a Georgia militia broke in an destroyed the press in 1834.

Southeastern Indians

Often called the Five Civilized Tribes or Five Tribes, the Southeastern Indians (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creed, and Seminole) are a groups of related tribes that originated in the US Southeast. These tribes are similar in culture, religion, and economy. They were simultaneously removed in the 1830s despite largely being acculturated into white society.

Twin Villages

San Bernardo and San Teodoro, located on opposite sides of the Red River, which were principal villages of the Wichita who engaged in trade with the French and with tribes to the West. The Wichita apparently also acted as brokers between the French and the southern plains tribes

Treaty Party

The Ridge-Boudinot or mixed-blood faction of the Cherokee Nation who supported the signers of the Treaty of New Euchota and voluntarily removed to the west.

Three Forks Area

The region in the vicinity of where the Arkansas, Verdigris, and Grand Rivers merge, near present-day Muskogee. This area was an early center of trade and other activities. Fort Gibson was built in the Three Forks region in 1826.

Leased District

The western third of the old Choctaw Nation which, after 1855, was leased by the U.S. government as a potential home for tribes from Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska who were coming into conflict with settlers.

Stokes Commission

Three-man commission appointed in 1832 to aid in placating the western tribes and to facilitate the removal of the eastern tribes.

Matrilineal organization

Tracing descent through the mother's line. The First People in Oklahoma as well as the Five Civilized Tribes practiced matrilineal organization.

New Echota Treaty

Treaty negotiated in 1835 with the Ridge-Boudinot faction of the Cherokee Nation which provided for cession of Cherokee land east of the Mississippi and removal of the Cherokee to lands in the West. The majority of the Cherokee East denounced this treaty, but the U.S. proceeded with removal

Pike/Wilkinson Expedition

Twenty-three man expedition led by Zebulon Pike which left St. Louis in 1806 to explore the southwest area of the Louisiana Purchase including the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. The expedition split at the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and Lt. Wilkinson and five men returned east via the Arkansas, through present-day Oklahoma. Pike and the remainder of the party continued to the Rockies, then turned South in search of the headwaters of the Red. They built a stockade and went into camp on the Rio Grande (which they believed to be the Red River.) There they were arrested by the Spanish and taken first to Santa Fe and then to Mexico. Ultimately they were escorted across Texas to Louisiana where they were released.

Fort Smith

U.S. army post established by Stephen Long in 1817 at Belle Point on the Arkansas at the juncture of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers, 100 yards west of Arkansas Territory near the present-day Oklahoma-Arkansas border.

Fort Towson

U.S. military post established in 1824 on Gates Creek some seven miles from its juncture with the Red River near the mouth of the Kiamichi in southeastern Oklahoma. Towson was established to discourage settlers from squatting in the Kiamichi Valley and to protect the eastern tribes and assist in Indian removal.

Fort Gibson

U.S. military post established in 1824 on the Arkansas River between the mouths of the Verdigris and Grand Rivers in the Three Forks Area, primarily to monitor the Osage and to protect settlers in the Three Forks region.