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 a sovereign independent 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.
Anadarko is a city in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The city is fifty miles (80.5 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. The population was 5,745 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Caddo County.
Kiowa or Ka'igwa people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Alice Brown Davis was the first female Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and served from 1922–1935, appointed by President Warren G. Harding. She was of Seminole and Scots descent. Her older brother John Frippo Brown had served as chief of the tribe and their brother Andrew Jackson Brown as treasurer.
The Indian City USA Cultural Center, formerly known as Indian City USA, was an outdoor museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a private tribal college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Ruthe Blalock Jones is a Delaware-Shawnee-Peoria painter and printmaker from Oklahoma.
Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.
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.
Dana Tiger is a Muscogee artist of Seminole and Cherokee descent from Oklahoma. Her artwork focuses on portrayals of strong women. She uses art as a medium for activism and raising awareness. Tiger was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 2001.
David Emmett Williams was a Native American painter, who was Kiowa/Tonkawa/Kiowa-Apache from Oklahoma. He studied with Dick West at Bacone College and won numerous national awards for his paintings. He painted in the Flatstyle technique that was taught at Bacone from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Doris Littrell (1929–2020) was a gallerist from central Oklahoma who promoted Native American art.
Susie Peters was an American preservationist and matron at the Anadarko Agency, who worked to promote Kiowa artists. Born to white parents in Tennessee, she moved to Indian Territory with her family prior to Oklahoma becoming a state. While working as a matron for the Indian Agency, she discovered the talent of the young artists who would become known as the Kiowa Six and introduced them to Oscar Jacobson, director of the University of Oklahoma's art department. She was honored by the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians and both adopted by the tribe and given a Kiowa name in 1954. In 1963, the Anadarko Philomathic Club created an annual art award in her name. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in its inaugural year, 1982.
Southern Plains Indian Museum is a Native American museum located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. It was opened in 1948 under a cooperative governing effort by the United States Department of the Interior and the Oklahoma state government. The museum features cultural and artistic works from Oklahoma tribal peoples of the Southern Plains region, including the Caddo, Chiricahua Apache, Comanche, Delaware Nation, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Southern Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, and Wichita.
The National Native American Hall of Fame, established in 2016 in Great Falls, Montana, with a working facility in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has the mission of 'honoring Native American achievements in contemporary society 1860's – present day', and was founded by Little Shell Chippewa James Parker Shield who now serves as chief executive officer after serving as Montana's State Coordinator of Indian Affairs as the first Native American in the staff of the Montana Governor's office. Founding partners include native polities the Navajo Nation, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Chickasaw Nation and amici cultura the NoVo Foundation of Jennifer and Peter Buffett, daughter in law and son of Warren Buffett, and the TIDES Foundation founded by Drummond Pike.