lies S. of the Canadian and Arkansas rivers, and by treaties negotiated in 1824, 1833 and 1851 the Creeks received for themselves and the Seminoles a patent for the remaining or middle portion. Many of the Indians of these tribes brought slaves with them from the Southern states and during the Civil War they supported the Confederacy, but when that war was over the Federal government demanded not only the liberation of the slaves but new treaties, partly on the ground that the tribal lands must be divided with the freedmen. By these treaties, negotiated in 1866, the Cherokees gave the United States permission to settle other Indians on what was approximately the western half of their domain; the Seminoles, to whom the Creeks in 1855 had granted as their portion the strip between the Canadian river and its North Fork, ceded all of theirs, and the Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws ceded the western half of theirs back to the United States for occupancy by freedmen or other Indians. In the E. portion of the lands thus placed at its disposal by the Cherokees and the Creeks the Federal government within the next seventeen years made a number of small grants as follows: to the Seminoles in 1866, to the Sauk and Foxes in 1867, to the Osages, Kansas, Pottawatomies, Absentee Shawnees and Wichitas in 1871–1872, to the Pawnees in 1876, to the Poncas and Nez Percés in 1878, to the Otoes and Missouris in 1881, and to the Iowas and Kickapoos in 1883; in the S.W. quarter of the Territory, also, the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches were located in 1867 and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in 1869. There still remained unassigned the greater part of the Cherokee Strip besides a tract embracing 1,887,800 acres of choice land in the centre of the Territory, and the agitation for the opening of this to settlement by white people increased until in 1889 a complete title to the central tract was purchased from the Creeks and Seminoles. Soon after the purchase President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation announcing that this land would be opened to homestead settlement at twelve o'clock noon, on the 22nd of April 1889. At that hour no less than 20,000 people were on the border, and when the signal was given there ensued a remarkably spectacular race for homes. In the next year that portion of Indian Territory which lay S. of the Cherokee Strip and W. of the lands occupied by the five tribes, together with the narrow strip N. of Texas which had been denied to that state in 1850, was organized as the Territory of Oklahoma. In the meantime negotiations were begun for acquiring a clear title to the unoccupied portion of the Cherokee Strip, for individual allotments to the members of the several small tribes who had received tribal allotments since 1866, and for the purchase of what remained after such individual allotments had been made. As these negotiations were successful most of the land between the tract first opened and that of the Creeks was opened to settlement in 1891, a large tract to the W. of the centre was opened in 1892, a tract S. of the Canadian river and W. of the Chickasaws was opened in 1902, and by 1904 the entire Territory had been opened to settlement with the exception of a tract in the N.E. which was occupied by the Osages, Kaws, Poncas and Otoes. By the treaties with the five southern tribes they were to be permitted to make their own laws so long as they preserved their tribal relations, but since the Civil War many whites had mingled with these Indians, gained control for their own selfish ends of such government as there was, and made the country a refuge for fugitives from justice. Consequently, in 1893, Congress appointed the Dawes Commission to induce the tribes to consent to individual allotments as well as to a government administered from Washington, and in 1898 the Curtis Act was passed for making such allotments and for the establishment of a territorial government. When the allotments were nearly all made Congress in 1906 authorized Oklahoma and Indian Territories to qualify for admission to the Union as one state. As both Territories approved, a constitutional convention (composed of 100 Democrats and 12 Republicans) met at Guthrie on the 20th of November 1906. The constitution framed by this body was approved by the electorate on the 17th of September 1907, and the state was admitted to the Union on the 16th of November.
| Governors of Oklahoma—Territorial. | |
| George W. Steele | 1890–1891 |
| Robert Martin (acting) | 1891–1892 |
| Abraham J. Seay | 1892–1893 |
| William Gary Renfrow | 1893–1897 |
| Cassius McDonald Barnes | 1897–1901 |
| William M. Jenkins | 1901 |
| Thompson B. Ferguson | 1901–1906 |
| Frank Frantz | 1906–1907 |
| State. | |
| Charles Nathaniel Haskell, Democrat | 1907–1911 |
| Lee Cruce, Democrat | 1911– |
Bibliography.—See the Biennial Reports (Guthrie, 1904 sqq.) of the Oklahoma Department of Geology and Natural History; the Oklahoma Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 1: Preliminary Report on the Mineral Resources of Oklahoma (Norman, 1908); C. N. Gould, Geology and Water Resources of Oklahoma (Washington, 1905), being Water Supply and Irrigation Paper, No. 148 of the United States Geological Survey; A. J. Henry, Climatology of the United States, pp. 442-453 (Washington, 1906), being Bulletin Q of the Weather Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture; Mineral Resources of the United States, annual reports published by the United States Geological Survey (Washington, 1883 sqq.); Charles Evans and C. O. Bunn, Oklahoma Civil Government (Ardmore, 1908); C. A. Beard, “Constitution of Oklahoma,” in the Political Science Quarterly, vol. 24 (Boston, 1909); R. L. Owen, “Comments on the Constitution of Oklahoma,” in the Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, vol. 5 (Baltimore, 1909); S. J. Buck, The Settlement of Oklahoma (Madison, 1907), reprinted from the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters; and D. C. Gideon, Indian Territory, Descriptive, Biographical and Genealogical . . . with a General History of the Territory (New York, 1901).
OKLAHOMA CITY, a city and the county-seat of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, U.S.A., on the North Fork of the Canadian river, near the geographical centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 4151; (1900) 10,037; (1907) 32,452; (1910) 64,205. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the St Louis & San Francisco railways, and by inter-urban electric lines. It lies partly in a valley, partly on an upland, in a rich agricultural region. The city is the seat of Epworth University (founded in 1901 by the joint action of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South). Oklahoma City’s prosperity is due chiefly to its jobbing trade, with an extensive farming and stock-raising region, but it has also cotton compresses and cotton gins, and various manufactures. The total value of the factory products in 1905 was $3,670,730. Natural gas is largely used as a fuel. A large settlement was established here on the 22nd of April 1889, the day on which the country was by proclamation declared open for settlement. The city was chartered in 1890.
OKUBO TOSHIMITSU (1830–1878), Japanese statesman, a samurai of Satsuma, was one of the five great nobles who led the revolution in 1868 against the shogunate. He became one of the mikado’s principal ministers, and in the Satsuma troubles which followed he was the chief opponent of Saigo Takamori. But the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion brought upon him the personal revenge of Saigo’s sympathizers, and in the spring of 1878 he was assassinated by six clansmen. Okubo was one of the leading men of his day, and in 1872 was one of the Japanese mission which was sent round the world to get ideas for organizing the new régime.
OKUMA (SHIGENOBU), Count (1838–), Japanese statesman, was born in the province of Hizen in 1838. His father was an officer in the artillery, and during his early years his education consisted mainly of the study of Chinese literature. Happily for him, however, he was able to acquire in his youth a knowledge of English and Dutch, and by the help of some missionaries he succeeded in obtaining books in those languages on both scientific and political subjects. These works effected a complete revolution in his mind. He had been designed by his parents for the military profession, but the new light which now broke in upon him determined him to devote his entire energies to the abolition of the existing feudal system and to the establishment of a constitutional government. With impetuous zeal he urged his views on his countrymen, and though he took no active part
