sooners

The opening of "Oklahoma Territory"

stories of the "Sooners"

authors note: This is by no means a complete and thorough dissertation of the historic event that occurred on 22 April 1889. I know that there are thousands of stories of the "Rush" and I could never do justice to such an event. These are just a few personal tales about that time and anyone that can add to or correct stories here-in are welcome to contact me, <[email protected]>, I will do my best to accommodate.

"To the Victors go the Spoils"

By 1889 virtually all of the indigenous peoples still living in the area of North America then controlled by the United States Government, were contained in the "Indian Territory" in the center of the nation. There weren't many left, only about fifty to one hundred thousand of the original two million aborigines estimated to be living in this area when the first Europeans landed here. Each tribe, and there were about eighty different tribes in "The Territory" by this time, was assigned a reservation of land to be held in common, the ownership of the land was vested in the tribe, not the individuals. This was not hard for the Indians to accept as most had never personally owned any land and all decisions as to where they lived and what they did was a communal decision.

It wasn't long before land hungry pioneers of European ancestry who were accustomed to owning their own places noticed that there was a lot of "Un-used land" on the reservations, and began clamoring for changes. This resulted in revisions to the treaties that the U. S, had with the various Indian Tribes that would result in the breaking up of the reservations and allotting land to the individual Indians, The "Dawes Allotment Act" of 1887, declared that each Indian would receive title to 160 acres of ex-tribal land to own and hold as individuals. The balance of the land was called "Surplus Lands" and opened to settlement by allotment, lottery or a "Run".

One portion, the "Unassigned Lands", about 2,000,000 acres in the center of the Indian Territory, and called "Oklahoma Territory", was not part of a reservation. This was land taken from the Indians after the end of the civil war as punishment for siding the South. Most of the "Five Civilized Tribes" had Negro slaves and fought with the south in order to keep them. For that reason, much of the land they had been "given" by earlier treaty was taken away and became government land, this land was "leased" to large cattle ranches for about twenty five cents an acre. This land became the focal point of a legislative battle that lasted for years, between the lobbyist for the cattle ranchers and "The Boomers", a group of people that wanted the land opened to settlement. All the haranguing ended when on the 3rd of March 1889, congress enacted the law opening surplus lands in the Oklahoma and Indian Territory to homestead.

The opening of the "Unassigned Lands" was the first of several opportunities that frontier pioneers would have to own free land. This historic event took place at noon on the 22nd of April 1889 and has been called "The Greatest Horserace Ever". Over 50,000 hopeful homesteaders would be competing for about 10,000 claims of 160 acres each, or the lots the government had surveyed and reserved for the five towns planned, no person or household could make more than one claim.

For many days before the opening, tens of thousands of people gathered at the borders of the land to be opened. The government mandated that anyone who had been in the Territory for a certain period of time prior to the "Opening" would not be able to file a homestead as this would give them an unfair advantage, and all individuals found in the area prior to the opening would be arrested and not be allowed to compete. This police function was allotted to the soldiers stationed at Fort Reno, a wholly inadequate number of soldiers to cover the area, and many people took advantage of this shortcoming, going into the territory and hiding. These were to become "The Sooners", technically criminals, my grandfather was one of them.

At the assigned time, soldiers guarding the borders of the area to be opened, fired guns and blew bugles to "Start the Rush". and the race for homesteads began. Land seekers in Wagons, on horseback, bicycles, trains and even on foot forged into the area to stake claim to a future. By that evening, every homestead had been claimed, claimants were standing in line to file, some for as long as three days, and the towns of Guthrie, Kingfisher, Norman and Oklahoma City were staked out and "Claimed".

Later runs, the Sac, Fox, Potawatomi, Shawnee and Iowa tribe's surplus lands in 1891, the Cheyenne and Arapahoes' in 1892. In 1893, the largest land run in history occurred when more than 100,000 hopeful settlers rushed for land in the Cherokee Outlet, and the final "Land Run", the Kickapoo in 1895. All were accomplished without the extreme excitement of the first. Perhaps by this time the land seekers had learned that the descriptions of milk and honey portrayed by the Boomers was slightly exaggerated and this was going to be hard work. After that federal officials used the lottery system or just sold the land.

In August 1901 the surplus lands of the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Wichita and Caddo Reservations were opened to settlement by lottery and in 1906 the rest of the surplus lands, "The Big Pasture", a grazing tract of 480,000 acres that had been reserved to the Kiowas and Comanches for grazing was sold at public auction. The last 51,000 surplus acres on the Ponca, Oto, Missouri and Kaw reservations was just appraised and sold by federal officials. Once the reservation lands were sold or claimed they became part of Oklahoma Territory, only the reservation land alloted to Indians was properly called Indian Territory.

Even though there were probably many people that did the same thing on the other runs, the only ones referred to as "Sooners" were those in the 1889 "Greatest Horserace".

My grandfather's story, John Louis Castleman , a "Sooner"

(At this time I do not have any other Sooner's stories. If you have some and wish me to place it here, send it to <[email protected]>, I will do my best to research it and make it a part of "SOONERS")

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