A millennium before Europeans arrived in North America, Native people were already flourishing in the land now known as Oklahoma. One of the most famous were the Spiro Mound builders, who were Caddoan speaking indigenous people of the prehistoric era. These natives created one of the most complex trade networks in the entire Americas, and had advancements in technology and governance that was considered far ahead of its time by historians. It is believed their political system controlled the entire region, which extended southeast as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
The Spiro Mound Builders in Oklahoma were likely ancestors of the Caddo and Wichita tribes we know today. Over the centuries many other tribes settled along the rivers, including Pawnee, Osage and Quapaw. Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Apache would also move into the region and claim its fertile hunting and fishing grounds.
By the 1800’s, there were five dominant tribes in the southeast region of the US territories, who were described as the “Five Civilized Tribes” by colonialists – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. They were referred to as “civilized” because of their seeming acceptance of many aspects of European and American culture into their own – including horticulture, widespread adoption of Christianity, and a centralized form of government. The term was also used to distinguish them from other “savage” tribes who continued to rely on traditional hunting and kept to their customary religious practices.
However, whatever peaceful co-existence that Tribal nations had with white settlers was abruptly shattered by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced these and other tribes to relocate from their ancestral homeland to a newly established “Indian Territory”, which largely encompassed what is now Oklahoma, minus the panhandle.
At least half of the populations of the Muscogee and Cherokee died as they were forcibly uprooted and marched against their will over 2,000 miles under unbearable conditions to Indian Territory, a tragic chapter in American history known as the Trail of Tears. Once they arrived, they were forced to quickly learn to co-habitat with the tribes that already lived there, the aforementioned Apache, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage and Wichita. As years passed, other tribes were also forced from their homes to relocate to Indian Territory, such as the Kaw, Ponca, Otoe, Missouri, Alabama, the Delaware, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Peoria, Ottawa, Wyandotte, Seneca, and Iowa. In all, by the end of the nineteenth century, 67 tribes were forced to call Indian Territory their new home, never to see their spiritual and cultural homelands again.
After the onset of the American Civil War, the tribes of Indian Territory were forced to enlist and fight – many for the Confederacy – as both the North and South fought for control of the region. In fact, one of the most pivotal battles of the Civil War was fought in Indian Territory – the Battle of Honey Springs, or the Affairs at Elk Creek as it is also known. The Union victory at Elk Creek denied the Confederacy of critical supply lines, and was later acknowledged as a turning point in the war.
However, after the Civil War ended, the Union retaliated against the tribes that were pressured to fight for the Confederacy, forcing them to sign the Reconstruction Treaties of 1866, which reduced their territory even further and allowed western railroads to be built across their land.
Over the course of the late nineteenth century, Oklahoma reservations for the tribes were finally created after hard fought battles during the Indian Wars. Then, just as the Oklahoma tribes had to persevere in the face of adversity and re-establish their traditional way of life amid their new environment after forced resettlement, they found themselves having to fight for their own cultural survival once again.
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