WHEN AMERICANS HUNGERED FOR THE LAND by Tom Rizzo

 

Under the blanket of a cloudless blue sky, thousands of land-hungry settlers waited with restless patience, eager for a jump-start on opportunity.

 

At noon, April 22, 1889, a bugle sounded, a cannon roared, and a gunshot rang out, signaling the start of Oklahoma Land Rush.

Some said the ground shook as horses, wagons, and men, women, and children on foot kicked up clouds of red dust stampeding across what was once known as Indian Territory.

Waiting beyond the horizon were more than two-million acres of  land for non-Indian settlement on a first-come basis.

Fifty-thousand hopeful settlers, from all walks of life and ethnic origins, raced hell-bent-for-leather to stake claims, even thought there were less than 12,000 homesteads available.

On March 23, 1889, newly-elected President Benjamin Harrison declared the two-million-acre parcel of Unassigned Lands open for settlement. 

The borders of this region, situated in the central part of Indian Territory, came about through a series of treaties with Indian tribes.

Under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862,  a settler could claim 160 acres of public land, and could receive title if they lived on and improved the land for five years.

The settlers aiming to stake claims were known as Boomers.

The ones who sneaked into the territory early, and illegally, to register choice sections of property with land offices were dubbed Sooners,  who often occupied the most favorable sections of land.

The bitter disputes over the land were often settled by violence. Many court cases over the disputed land dragged into the 20th century before the U.S. Dept. of Interior got the go-ahead to settle them.

The land rush proved so successful that by the end of the day it started, April 22nd, entire cities sprang up, and others experienced population explosions.

Guthrie grew from a railroad station to a town of 10,000. And, settlers established Oklahoma City the same day, also with a population of about 10,000 residents.

According to Harper's Weekly, in about a one-half day, "…streets had been laid out, town lots staked off, and steps taken toward the formation of a municipal government."

Sixteen years later, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory. In 1907, the territory entered the Union when Oklahoma became a state on November 17, 1907.

Except for the panhandle, all of Oklahoma previously had been set aside for the Indians displaced from other part of the country. Among them, the Five Civilized Tribes - the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole - so named because of their willingness to abide by white laws.

 

The Land Rush of 1889, and two subsequent land grabs, made the Indians casualties of this enormous occupation juggernaut, which forced them onto reservations.

Washington took our lands and promised to feed and support us. Now I, who used to control 5,000 warriors, must tell Washington when I am hungry. I must beg for that which I own…My heart is heavy. I am old, I cannot do much more.

—Sioux leader Red Cloud, as an old man, recorded by anthropologist Warren K. Moorehead who spoke with the chief at his home in Pine Ridge. 

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The First Sooner

by Phil Truman

At high noon on April 22, 1889 they gave the signal. In some areas it was a cavalry officer’s pistol shot, or a bugler’s trump; in other parts citizens let go a volley of rifle fire. At Fort Reno they set off a cannon, perhaps giving resonance to the term “boomer.”

The Oklahoma Land Run

Fact was, in the post-Civil War years leading up to that spring day in 1889, a movement had begun by white settlers to lay claim to the so-called unassigned lands in the heart of the Indian Territory. Contingents of these citizens gathered in Kansas and moved onto the lands as the federal government—in a time-honored tradition that persists to this day—sat around trying to figure what to do with the three thousand square mile area. These early settlers were known as Boomers, but I'm not exactly sure why. It was a name coined by a newspaper man. Several times they moved onto the "Oklahoma Lands," but were subsequently evicted by the military, and their leaders arrested.

In any case, the signal on that later April day began an avalanche of new settlers – farmers, merchants, railroad workers, carpenters, cattlemen, preachers, lawyers, doctors, all manner of men, women, and children. It was the Oklahoma Land Run, that iconic event of the American West and the American Dream where 160 acres of land were free for the taking. All you had to do was stake it out, claim it, and battle any others—sometimes in a shootout—who did likewise on the same piece of ground.

Heavener Rune Stone

As in any mostly honest endeavor, there are those around who’d rather not play by the rules, those who’d rather cheat. The Oklahoma Land Run had such individuals. These folks thought they’d sneak onto the unassigned lands, stay hidden until the appointed hour on April 22, then stake out their choice 160 acres ahead of the rush. These interlopers would become known as Sooners, from whence Oklahoma gets its nickname the “Sooner State.” So we native sons and daughters of Oklahoma, we Sooners, are forever associated with cheaters. (As an aside, a great many Oklahomans from Oklahoma State University, alumni and students, would vehemently beg to differ at being called a Sooner, but that's a matter for another post on another blog.)

There is an artifact in the state, however, which may be the claim of the granddaddy of all Sooners. In fact, you could add about four greats to that granddaddy.

On the eastern side near the town of Heavener stands a huge slab of stone. It’s located near a ridge of a sub-range of the Ouachita (Wah shi taw) Mountains called the Poteau Mountain Wilderness. The stone stands about twelve feet tall and ten feet wide. On one side, at roughly chest-high to a tall Viking, are man-made carvings identified as runes, or characters from an Old Norse alphabet. One group of scholars identified these runic characters from a set used between 800-1100 A.D.

Thor Glome (possibly)

There are differing opinions on the translation of the runes, but most think they read either “Gnomes Valley” or “Glome's Valley.”

Now, there’s a lot of controversy over these runes and the stone on which they’re carved. Some archeologists say they’re genuine pre-Columbian carvings, some say they’re not. From what I’ve read, the evidence for both arguments is inconclusive, as they say. But both sides agree that they most likely weren’t made by American Indians, and certainly existed before 1889.

Personally, I side with the pro group. I like to think that one day, let's say in the new year of 1014, a boatload of Vikings, led by a big yellow-headed Norseman named Thor Glome, left his pards—who’d already discovered what would one day become Newfoundland—to sail down the east coast of the future United States, around the tip of its southeastern most peninsula, northwest across the gulf of water on the western side, then rowed up through the massive delta and lower part of that great river until they came to its confluence with a major tributary flowing from the west. There old Thor hove the rudder hard-over steering westward into the heart of that vast new continent. At some point they struck out across land, looking for…well, whatever it was Vikings looked for—plunder, pillage, that sort of thing—until Glome and his crew came to a scenic mountain valley he took a fancy to. The big Viking found the great rock sticking up out of the ground on that hillside and struck his name into it–Glome’s Valley. He there became the first white man sooner than any other to lay claim to that land.

Phil Truman has authored three of what he calls, “Oklahoma-centric” novels. His award winning  Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr,  is a historical novel about the life and times of an Oklahoma outlaw,. His novel GAME, an American Novel is a sports inspirational about small town schoolboy football. Legends of Tsalagee weaves a tale of mystery and adventure in a small town. His western short story “Last Will for an Outlaw” appears in LaFrontera Publishing’s anthology, Dead or Alive, released June 2013. 
 
Phil’s website is: http://philtrumanink.com/