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A Line in the Sod: Oklahoma Land Runs
Note: This episode opens with a gunshot sound effect.
On September 16, 1893, a gun was fired at noon, and 100,000 people surged across the Oklahoma plains in the largest land run in American history. Within 2 hours, 6.5 million acres were claimed. Cities appeared overnight. The frontier, they said, was finally settled.
But a young Tonkawa woman was already there, lying flat in the grass at the edge of her family's field, feeling the hoofbeats in her teeth.
In this episode, we follow the process that made the Oklahoma Land Runs possible, the Dawes Act of 1887, the Jerome Commission's hard bargaining and deception, and the quiet arithmetic of tribal land ceded for cents on the dollar. We hear from Oklahoma's first territorial governor, who wrote frankly about the chaos and the cost. And we sit with the Tonkawa, who kept their allotments, watched a town spring up on their former land, and watched it be named after them.
For photos, maps, and glimpses of the past, follow @rootedintheplains on Instagram.
Want to learn more?
- Berthrong, Donald J. "Legacies of the Dawes Act: Bureaucrats and Land Thieves at the Cheyenne-Arapaho Agencies of Oklahoma." Arizona and the West 21, no. 4 (1979): 335–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40168884
- Da', Laura. "Passing the Frontier." Prairie Schooner 96, no. 1 (2022): 79–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45474106
- Faulk, Odie B. "Land of the Fair God and the Run for Land." History News 44, no. 5 (1989): 7–8. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42652022
- Hasskarl, Robert A. "The Culture and History of the Tonkawa Indians." Plains Anthropologist 7, no. 18 (1962): 217–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25666463
- Hefley, Maurice. A Pioneer at the Land Openings in Oklahoma. Summer 1962. Oklahoma Historical Society. https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2123819/
- Steele, George W. Report of the Governor of Oklahoma to the Secretary of the Interior, 1891. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891. https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6155&context=indianserialset
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By Nicole BlackstockNote: This episode opens with a gunshot sound effect.
On September 16, 1893, a gun was fired at noon, and 100,000 people surged across the Oklahoma plains in the largest land run in American history. Within 2 hours, 6.5 million acres were claimed. Cities appeared overnight. The frontier, they said, was finally settled.
But a young Tonkawa woman was already there, lying flat in the grass at the edge of her family's field, feeling the hoofbeats in her teeth.
In this episode, we follow the process that made the Oklahoma Land Runs possible, the Dawes Act of 1887, the Jerome Commission's hard bargaining and deception, and the quiet arithmetic of tribal land ceded for cents on the dollar. We hear from Oklahoma's first territorial governor, who wrote frankly about the chaos and the cost. And we sit with the Tonkawa, who kept their allotments, watched a town spring up on their former land, and watched it be named after them.
For photos, maps, and glimpses of the past, follow @rootedintheplains on Instagram.
Want to learn more?
- Berthrong, Donald J. "Legacies of the Dawes Act: Bureaucrats and Land Thieves at the Cheyenne-Arapaho Agencies of Oklahoma." Arizona and the West 21, no. 4 (1979): 335–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40168884
- Da', Laura. "Passing the Frontier." Prairie Schooner 96, no. 1 (2022): 79–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45474106
- Faulk, Odie B. "Land of the Fair God and the Run for Land." History News 44, no. 5 (1989): 7–8. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42652022
- Hasskarl, Robert A. "The Culture and History of the Tonkawa Indians." Plains Anthropologist 7, no. 18 (1962): 217–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25666463
- Hefley, Maurice. A Pioneer at the Land Openings in Oklahoma. Summer 1962. Oklahoma Historical Society. https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2123819/
- Steele, George W. Report of the Governor of Oklahoma to the Secretary of the Interior, 1891. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891. https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6155&context=indianserialset