Unassigned Lands

In the first land run of 1889, most of the land offered had not been assigned to any tribe. Ten years earlier in 1879, Elias C. Boudinot, a prominent mixed-blood Cherokee lawyer, discovered this fact. He created a fire storm when he published a letter urging the opening of the Unassigned Lands to non-Indians. Thought to be working with the railroads and the boomers, he was called a traitor by his people.

Farming in Oklahoma

About 900 A.D. Indians of Oklahoma grew beans, corn, and pumpkins. In the 1850's mixed-blood plantation owner Choctaw Robert M. Jones cultivated more than 5,000 acres and shipped his cotton to New Orleans on his own steam boats.