Military Posts

To control the Plains tribes after the Civil War, the government established a chain of forts from the Dakotas to Texas. In the Indian Territory the new western outposts were Fort Sill, Fort Reno, and Camp Supply. From these bases of operation, troops tacked and battled elusive Indians, chased and arrested horse thieves, and found and drove out the persistent armies of boomers led by David L. Payne and William Couch. In 1889 troops from Fort Reno supervised the land run.

Five Civilized Tribes and The Civil War

At the time of the Civil War, the Five Civilized Tribes owned most all of what became Oklahoma except for the Panhandle and Old Greer County. As punishment for siding with the Confederacy, the federal government took away the western half of their lands. These were the lands opened to settlers later in Oklahoma history.
They attempted to enter the Union as the state of Sequoyah in 1905, but instead joined Oklahoma Territory to become one state in 1907.