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OKLAHOMA

    Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was said to have come to Oklahoma during his days of exploration in search of golden treasures.  It is said that he was bitterly disappointed to find only Plain Apache Indians and "humpbacked cows" (buffalo) and left.  If he had only known the true treasure of Oklahoma that lay in pools beneath the oil rich lands, and their worth in today's market, we all might have been speaking Spanish instead of English and the United States might never have been born.

    Oklahoma was the last refuge of the Indian.   Many tribes called the Oklahoma Territory home.  The Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Plains Indians were found there, as were the village-dwelling Caddo, Wichita and Pawnee, who called  this home for hundreds of years.  With the Louisiana purchase in 1803, this all changed.   It was supposedly dedicated for the use of the Indians, and in fact, the American government relocated Indians from several southeastern and east central areas of the United States so that these areas could be opened for white settlement.    Relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Indians, began in 1820.  By 1830, all Indians who lived east of the Mississippi River had been ordered to move into designated territories.  The worst of these removals was that of the Cherokee nation, know known as the Trail of Tears.  The Cherokee people were moved out in the dead of winter in a forced migration with little food and no shelter.  Along the trail, over 4,000 Cherokee civilians died.  Their lives on the reservation were often no better as they were often cheated by unscrupulous Indian agents and treated with a disrespect for which we, as Americans, should be heartily ashamed.

    The government purchased about two million acres in the sections next to Logan and Oklahoma counties.  The farmers of Illinois, Iowa and Kansas moved into the western and northwestern sections.  The settlers from Arkansas, Missouri and Texas took over the southern and eastern parts of the state.  Thousands of homesteaders were granted homesteads in government-supervised land rushes, but these, too, were not without incident as there were some dishonest and unscrupulous individuals who had themselves sneaked over the borders early, staking out some of the best claims and hiding until the gun was sounded, claiming the land ahead of the honest homesteaders.  These people were called Sooners, and many of them eventually lost their ill-gotten gains.  The term eventually got attached as a nickname for the people of the state and it remains "The Sooner State" to this day.

    Oklahoma became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.  it was originally included in the Indiana Territory.  In 1812, it was combined with the Missouri Territory and in 1819, it was changed to the Arkansas Territory.  Oklahoma was included in what was called the Indian Territory, which changed in 1893 when that section was divided into Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory with the Oklahoma section being opened to white settlement.

    In 1890, a Territorial Government was established and Guthrie became its capital.  In 1892, two new counties formed and in 1892, six more counties were formed.  In 1893, the area known as the Cherokee Outlet, in the northwest, was opened for white settlers.  Greer County was added to Oklahoma in 1896 as a result of a court action and an act of Congress as settlement of a joint claim by Oklahoma and Texas, who both felt this area should be theirs.

    Oklahoma became the fourth-sixth state in the Union on 16 November 1907 and the capital was moved from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in 1910.

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