Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
Marshall County is a county located on the south central border of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 15,312. Its county seat is Madill. The county was created at statehood in 1907 from the former Pickens County of the Chickasaw Nation. It was named to honor the maiden name of the mother of George Henshaw, a member of the 1906 Oklahoma Constitutional Convention. The county and its cities are part of the Texoma region.
Johnston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,272. Its county seat is Tishomingo. It was established at statehood on November 16, 1907, and named for Douglas H. Johnston, a governor of the Chickasaw Nation.
Bryan County is a county in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,067. Its county seat is Durant. It is the only county in the United States named for Democratic politician William Jennings Bryan.
The Chickasaw are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, United States. Their traditional territory was in northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabama, western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classified as a member of the Muskogean language family. In the present day, they are organized as the federally recognized Chickasaw Nation.
Tishomingo is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Johnston County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,034 at the 2010 census, a decline of 4.1 percent from the figure of 3,162 in 2000. It was the first capital of the Chickasaw Nation, from 1856 until Oklahoma statehood in 1907. The city is home to Murray State College, a community college with an annual enrollment of 3,015 students. Tishomingo is part of the Texoma region.
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles. White Americans classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.
The State of Sequoyah was a proposed state to be established from the Indian Territory in the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, with the end of tribal governments looming, Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole—in Indian Territory proposed to create a state as a means to retain control of their lands. Their intention was to have a state under Native American constitution and governance. The proposed state was to be named in honor of Sequoyah, the Cherokee who created a writing system in 1825 for the Cherokee language.
Texoma is an interstate region in the United States, split between Oklahoma and Texas. The name is a portmanteau of Texas and Oklahoma. Businesses use the term in their names to describe their intended service area. This includes 8 counties with a population estimate of 319,455.
Boggy Depot is a ghost town and Oklahoma State Park that was formerly a significant city in the Indian Territory. It grew as a vibrant and thriving town in present-day Atoka County, Oklahoma, United States, and became a major trading center on the Texas Road and the Butterfield Overland Mail route between Missouri and San Francisco. After the Civil War, when the MKT Railroad came through the area, it bypassed Boggy Depot and the town began a steady decline. It was soon replaced by Atoka as the chief city in the area. By the early 20th century, all that remained of the community was a sort of ghost town.
The Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American tribe with headquarters in Ada, Oklahoma, in the United States. They are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, originally from northern Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, southwestern Kentucky, and western Tennessee. Today, the Chickasaw Nation is the 13th largest tribe in the United States.
Billy Joe Anoatubby is the 32nd Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, a position he has held since 1987. From 1979 to 1987, Anoatubby served two terms as Lieutenant Governor of the Chickasaw Nation in the administration of Governor Overton James, after being popularly elected to office. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Choctaw Country is the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation's official tourism designation for Southeastern Oklahoma. The name was previously Kiamichi Country until changed in honor of the Choctaw Nation headquartered there. The current definition of Choctaw Country includes ten counties, being Coal, Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, McCurtain, Pushmataha, Le Flore, Latimer, Haskell, and Pittsburg counties. The department created the term as one of six designated travel regions within the state. However, other definitions of Southeastern Oklahoma may include additional counties.
Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district is one of five United States congressional districts in Oklahoma and covers approximately one-fourth of the state in the east. The district borders Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas and includes a total of 24 counties. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of R+29, it is the most Republican district in Oklahoma, a state with an all-Republican congressional delegation.
South Central Oklahoma is an amorphous region in the state of Oklahoma, perhaps encompassing 10 counties. It is centered on the Arbuckle Mountains, an ancient, eroded range traversing some 70 miles (110 km) across the region, and surrounded by rivers and lakes, notably Lake Texoma, Lake Murray and Lake of the Arbuckles. For tourism purposes, the Oklahoma Department of Tourism has more narrowly defined South Central Oklahoma, which they refer to as Chickasaw Country, as being a seven-county region including Pontotoc, Johnston, Marshall, Garvin, Murray, Carter, and Love counties. A ten-county definition might also include Coal, Atoka, and Bryan counties, although the Department of Tourism includes those in Choctaw Country. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma covers the eastern third of the region. Its headquarters is in Durant, and its capitol building, now a museum, is in Tuskahoma. The Chickasaw Nation lies within the region, with the tribal capitol building located at Tishomingo and its headquarters in Ada. The Chickasaw Nation, which runs "Chickasawcountry.com"., promotes the idea of Chickasaw Country as the 13 south-central Oklahoma counties that comprise the Chickasaw Nation, being the Tourism Department’s seven counties plus Coal, Bryan, Jefferson, Stephens, Grady, and McClain counties.
Douglas Hancock Cooper Johnston, also known as "Douglas Henry Johnston", was a tribal leader who served as the last elected governor of the Chickasaw Nation from 1898 to 1902. He was re-elected in 1904 and, after the Dawes Act changed how tribal lands were allocated and regulated in Indian Territory to allow statehood in 1907, he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 as governor of the tribe under federal authority. He served until his death in office in 1939.
The Treaty with Choctaws and Chickasaws was a treaty signed on July 12, 1861 between the Choctaw and Chickasaw and the Confederate States. At the beginning of the American Civil War, Albert Pike was appointed as Confederate envoy to Native Americans. In this capacity he negotiated several treaties, one of the most important being with Cherokee chief John Ross, which was concluded in 1861. The treaty was ratified and proclaimed on December 20, 1861 by the Confederacy. The Choctaw and Chickasaw also duly ratified the treaty.
On the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, a significant number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been relocated from the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Indian Territory, the Five Civilized Tribes, were suzerain nations with established tribal governments, well established cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.
Harry James Watson "Jimmy" Belvin was a Native American educator who served as an Oklahoma State Representative and Senator. He was the first elected principal chief of any of the Five Civilized Tribes in the 20th century, and the longest serving principal chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He saw his tribe through termination, restoration, and a rebirth of Native Pride. He was a polarizing leader, seen by some as a semi-dictator who held onto the office of principal chief and used his power to advocate for complete assimilation into the dominant society, suppressing Choctaw traditions, language and ceremonial practices as undesirable remnants of an unrefined history. To others, he was a well-liked, populist leader, who went door-to-door talking with tribe members, informing them on issues, and trying to develop the means the alleviate the poverty and unemployment they faced.
Pickens County was a political subdivision of the Chickasaw Nation in the Indian Territory from 1855, prior to Oklahoma being admitted as a state in 1907. The county was one of four that comprised the Chickasaw Nation. Following statehood, its territory was divided among several Oklahoma counties that have continued to the present.
