Showing The INDIAN NATIONS,

And The Counties Which Were Later Formed Of Those Areas

In 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, the United States assumed control of the area that became Oklahoma. Indian people already inhabited the land. Wichita, Plains Apache (today's Apache Tribe), Quapaws, and Caddos were here during the Spanish and French colonial period. By the 1800s, Osage, Pawnees, Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahos had also migrated into the region or visited. Some Delawares, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Chickasaws and Choctaws regularly came to hunt for Oklahoma's abundant bison, beaver, deer and bear.

In 1830 with the expansion of white settlement into the Trans-Appalachian West the Indian Removal Act was passed, forcing all Eastern Indians to move to new homelands west of the Mississippi River in the "Indian Territory." The Five Civilized Tribes purchased new lands in today's Oklahoma, but some relocated farther north.

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 led to renewed white settlement in these territories, and the immigrant tribes located there were soon under pressure to move on. In 1859, Texas also forced out all remaining tribes. The Civil War temporarily ended the removals.