Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2004
Abstract
William T. Hagan's latest book examines the negotiations between the federal government and specific tribes in Indian Territory for the sale of tribal lands and the allotment of land to individual Indians. Encroachment by white settlers presented a major incentive for the federal government to complete these transactions expeditiously. Settlers as well as speculators applied significant pressure to organize Oklahoma into a territory and open the Cherokee Outlet. In response, on March 2, 1889, Congress passed an act creating the Cherokee Commission to negotiate the sale of lands by the Cherokees, Iowas, Pawnees, Poncas, T onakawas, Wichitas, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Sac and Fox, Potawatomis, Shawnees, and Kickapoos.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 24:3 (Summer 2004). Copyright © 2004 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.