Indian Territory

Indian Territory, in U.S. history, name applied to the country set aside for Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act (1834). In the 1820s, the federal government began moving the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) of the Southeast to lands W of the Mississippi River. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 gave the President authority to designate specific lands for them, and in 1834 Congress formally approved the choice. The Indian Territory included present-day Oklahoma N and E of the Red River, as well as Kansas and Nebraska; the lands were delimited in 1854, however, by the creation of the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Tribes other than the original five also moved there, but each tribe maintained its own government. As white settlers continued to move westward, pressure to abolish the Indian Territory mounted. With the opening of W Oklahoma to whites in 1889 the way was prepared for the extinction of the territory, achieved in 1907 with the entrance of Oklahoma into the Union. See Oklahoma.

---

Indian Territory

Former territory, U.S. West, including most of modern Oklahoma. The Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Chickasaw tribes were forcibly moved to this area between 1830 and 1843, and an 1834 act set aside the land as Indian country. In 1866 its western half was ceded to the U.S.; this portion was opened to white settlers in 1889 and became the Territory of Oklahoma in 1890. The two territories were united and admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma in 1907.

---

Indian Territory

area set aside for the Indians by the U.S. government. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 1331]

See : Wild West