Portal:Oklahoma/Selected article/13

The Indian Territory served as the destination for the policy of Indian Removal, a policy pursued intermittently by American presidents early in the nineteenth century, but aggressively pursued by President Andrew Jackson after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Five Civilized Tribes in the South were the most prominent tribes displaced by the policy, a relocation that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. The trail ended in what is now Arkansas and Oklahoma, where there were already many Native Americans living in the territory, as well as whites and escaped slaves. Other tribes, such as the Delaware, Cheyenne, and Apache were also forced to relocate to the Indian territory.

The Five Civilized Tribes set up towns such as Tulsa, Ardmore, Tahlequah, Tishomingo, Muskogee and others, which often became some of the larger towns in the state. They also brought their African slaves to Oklahoma, which added to the African-American population in the state. These tribes fought on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Confederate commander of the Cherokee nation, became the last Confederate general to surrender in the American Civil War on 23 June 1865. (Read more...)