Sooners is the name given to settlers who entered the Unassigned Lands illegally in what is now the state of Oklahoma before the official start of the Land Rush of 1889. The Unassigned Lands were a part of Indian Territory that, after a lobbying campaign, were to be opened to American settlement in 1889. President Benjamin Harrison officially proclaimed the Unassigned Lands open to settlement on April 22, 1889. As people lined up around the borders of the Oklahoma District, they waited for the official opening. It was not until noon that it officially was opened to settlement. The name derived from the "sooner clause" of Proclamation 288 — Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory, which stated that anyone who entered and occupied the land prior to the opening time would be denied the right to claim land. [1]
The designation "Sooner" had a very negative connotation. [2] While "Boomers" were merely expressing "pioneer spirit" in their desire to take and settle former Indian territory, Sooners were essentially stealing from other white settlers by cheating on the claim requirements to get better land. However, these negative connotations cooled as time passed after 1889 and land claims were settled. In 1908, the University of Oklahoma football team adopted the nickname "Sooners". The U.S. state of Oklahoma at times has been controversially nicknamed the "Sooner State" since the 1920s. [1]
Sooners are not to be confused with deputy marshals, land surveyors, railroad employees, and others who were able to legally enter the territory early. [3] Sooners who crossed into the territory illegally at night were originally also sometimes called "moonshiners" because they had entered "by the light of the moon". These Sooners would hide in ditches at night and suddenly appear to stake their claim after the land run started, hours ahead of legal settlers. [1]
The term Boomer relating to Oklahoma refers to participants in the "Boomer Movement", white settlers who believed the Unassigned Lands were public property and open to anyone for settlement, not just Native American tribes. Their reasoning came from a clause in the Homestead Act of 1862, which said that any settler could claim 160 acres (0.65 km2) of public land. [4] Some Boomers entered and were removed more than once by the United States Army. [5]
Those who actually observed the official start of the land run and began the race for free land often found choice sections of land already occupied by Sooners or, in some cases, by Boomers. Problems with Sooners continued with each successive land run; in an 1895 land run as much as half of the available land was taken by Sooners. Litigation between legitimate land-run participants and Sooners continued well into the 20th century, and eventually the United States Department of the Interior was given ultimate authority to settle the disputes. [1]
In 1908, the University of Oklahoma adopted "Sooners" as the nickname of its football team, after having first tried "Rough Riders" and "Boomers". Eventually, Oklahoma became known as "The Sooner State". [1] The school fight song is titled "Boomer Sooner". The school "mascot" is a replica of a 19th-century covered wagon, called the "Sooner Schooner". When the OU football team scores the Sooner Schooner is pulled across the field by a pair of ponies named "Boomer" and "Sooner". There are a pair of costumed mascots also named "Boomer" and "Sooner".
A land run or land rush was an event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to homestead on a first-arrival basis. Lands were opened and sold first-come or by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The settlers, no matter how they acquired occupancy, purchased the land from the United States General Land Office. For former Indian lands, the Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms. The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the most prominent of the land runs while the Land Run of 1893 was the largest. The opening of the former Kickapoo area in 1895 was the last use of a land run in the present area of Oklahoma.
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma.
David Lewis Payne was an American soldier and pioneer. Payne is considered by some to be the "Father of Oklahoma" for his work in opening the state to settlement.
The Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma in the United States. It was a 60-mile-wide (97 km) parcel of land south of the Oklahoma–Kansas border between 96 and 100°W. The Cherokee Outlet was created in 1836. The United States forced the Cherokee Nation of Indians to cede to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for a reservation and an "outlet" in Indian Territory. At the time of its creation, the Cherokee Outlet was about 225 miles (360 km) long. The cities of Enid, Woodward, Ponca City, and Perry were later founded within the boundaries of what had been the Cherokee Outlet.
The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883, it was bounded by the Cherokee Outlet on the north, several relocated Indian reservations on the east, the Chickasaw lands on the south, and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reserve on the west. The area amounted to 1,887,796.47 acres.
The history of Oklahoma City refers to the history of city of Oklahoma City, and the land on which it developed. Oklahoma City's history begins with the settlement of "unassigned lands" in the region in the 1880s, and continues with the city's development through statehood, World War I and the Oklahoma City bombing.
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of the former western portion of the federal Indian Territory, which had decades earlier since the 1830s been assigned to the Creek and Seminole native peoples. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of the Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma.
"Boomer Sooner" is the fight song for the University of Oklahoma (OU). The lyrics were written in 1905 by Arthur M. Alden, an OU student and son of a local jeweler in Norman. The tune is taken from "Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale University. A year later, an additional section was appended, borrowed from the University of North Carolina's "I'm a Tar Heel Born".
The Sooner Schooner is an official mascot of the sports teams of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Pulled by two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner, it is a scaled-down replica of the Studebaker Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Oklahoma Territory around the time of the Land Run of 1889. Its name comes from the common term for such wagons and the name for settlers who sneaked into the Territory before it was officially opened for settlement ("Sooners").
The Indian Appropriations Act is the name of several acts passed by the United States Congress. A considerable number of acts were passed under the same name throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the most notable landmark acts consist of the Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs of 1851 and the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act.
Boomer and Sooner are two matching white ponies who pull the Sooner Schooner, a Conestoga wagon across the field when the University of Oklahoma football team scores. The Sooner Schooner is the true mascot of the team, bringing to mind the pioneers who settled Indian Territory during the 1889 Land Run and were the original "Sooners". The Sooner Schooner represents the University of Oklahoma as a mascot for the university and its sports teams, the Oklahoma Sooners.
The history of Oklahoma refers to the history of the state of Oklahoma and the land that the state now occupies. Areas of Oklahoma east of its panhandle were acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, while the Panhandle was not acquired until the U.S. land acquisitions following the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).
Nannita Daisey, also known as Kentucky Daisey, was an American woman said to be the first to file a land claim in the Oklahoma Land Rush – fame during the late nineteenth century in Oklahoma's land runs, fame that extended after her death in a legend about how she claimed her first Homestead tract.
In U.S. history, the Land Run of 1893, also known as the Cherokee Outlet Opening or the Cherokee Strip Land Run, marked the opening to settlement of the Cherokee Outlet in the Oklahoma Territory's fourth and largest land run. It was part of what would later become the U.S. state of Oklahoma in 1907.
The Socialist Party of Oklahoma was a semi-autonomous affiliate of the Socialist Party of America located in the Southwestern state of Oklahoma. One of the last states admitted to the Union, the area later incorporated into Oklahoma had been previously used for reservations to which indigenous Native American populations were deported, with the area formally divided after 1890 into two entities — an "Oklahoma Territory" in the West and an "Indian Territory" in the East.
Charles C. Carpenter was a Boomer leader who organized and instigated the first unauthorized attempt to homestead the Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma Territory in May 1879.
"Boomers" is the name used for a group of settlers in the Southern United States in what is now the state of Oklahoma.
William Lewis Couch, a native of North Carolina and later a resident of Kansas, was best known as a leader of the Boomer Movement and as the first provisional mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1889. He joined the Boomer Movement in 1880 and became the sole leader of the movement after David L. Payne's death on November 28, 1884. He participated in the Oklahoma Land Run on April 22, 1889.
Robert Galbreath Jr. (1863–1953) was an American pioneer entrepreneur, wildcatter and oilman in Oklahoma. A native of Ohio, he traveled to Kansas and California in the late 19th century. Returning East by way of Indian Territory, he participated with his brother, Herman, in the Land Rush of 1889 for the Unassigned Lands. Afterward, he sold his claim and settled in the new town of Edmond. He became an early wildcatter and oil producer. His most notable accomplishment was the discovery of the Glenn Pool oilfield.
Rachel Anna Haines (1842-1912) was an American homesteader and a leader of the Boomer movement to open up the Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory. She was the common-law wife of David L. Payne and is sometimes referred to as the "Mother of Oklahoma."