 Amending Indian Appropriation Act of 1892 |
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This report from the Committee of Public Lands asserted that dispossessed treaty lands and former military reservations should be closer in price per acre to lands distributed under the Homestead Act.
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| An Act For the removal of restrictions from part of the lands of allottees of the Five Civilized Tribes, and for other purposes (1908) |
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This congressional act established Oklahoma county probate courts as the main arbiters of land held by allottees of the Five Tribes. In particular, minors, incompetents, and deceased members of the Five Tribes were targeted for guardian interventions in the probate courts.
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| An Act to Adopt the Negroes of the Chickasaw Nation (1873) |
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This tribal law, which was adopted by the Chickasaw Nation on January 10, 1873, called for the adoption of Chickasaw Freedmen as citizens of the Chickasaw Nation. The law included three primary stipulations for the adoption of Chickasaw Freedmen as tribal citizens: first, that Chickasaw Freedmen be excluded from any financial interests in the $300,000 the tribe would receive and any other tribal invested funds or claims; second, that despite these exclusions from monetary benefits, Chickasaw Freedmen be considered fully subject to the "jurisdiction and laws" of the Chickasaw Nation; and third, that the law would go into effect after being approved "by the proper authority of the United States." The law would not be approved by the U.S. Congress until 1894.
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| An Act to Authorize the Sale of Certain Lands to the State of Oklahoma (1953) |
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This law authorized the state of Oklahoma to buy land once under the control of tribal nations, as the U.S. government resolved to terminate the special trustee relationship tribes held with the United States, further eroding tribal sovereignty.
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| An Act To provide for the appointment of additional judges of the United States court in the Indian Territory, and for other purposes (1895) |
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This act reorganized the federal court system in Indian Territory. The establishment of United States courts worked to undermine tribal judicial systems by asserting broad federal authority over regional criminal and civil disputes.
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| An Act To provide for the care and support of insane persons in the Indian Territory (1904) |
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This act weaponized Western medical diagnoses against tribal citizens in Indian Territory for the purpose of incarceration and confinement. Nearly four hundred Native people, from fifty different nations, were confined to the Canton Asylum during its operation from 1902-1934.
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| Burke Act (1906) |
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The Burke Act amended Section 6 of the Dawes Act to explicitly add competency as a legal marker for allottees, tying settler-colonial judgements of social and cultural behavior to land holding.
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| Cherokee Allotment Act (1902) |
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This act brought the Cherokee Nation into the federal process of allotment and gave the Dawes Commission exclusive jurisdiction over legal conflicts related to allotment.
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| Code Noir (1687) |
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A set of laws in French colonies that regulated the lives of enslaved and free black people. The code primarily defined slavery, but it also expelled all Jewish people from French colonies and required Black people to be Catholic and not protestant. The Code Noir demonstrates the way enslaved people's lives were regulated under French colonial rule.
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| Creek Allotment Act (1901) |
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This act brought the Muscogee (Creek) Nation into the federal process of allotment.
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| Creek Supplemental Agreement (1902) |
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This supplement to the Creek Agreement of 1901 renegotiated many legal issues related to allotment, including citizenship, leases, and inheritance. In particular, section 6 voided Creek law over land, descent, and distribution, and replaced it with Mansfield's Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas.
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| Curtis Act (1898) |
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The Curtis Act shows federal land dispossession in Indian Territory through settler colonial judicial and administrative practices. The act dissolved regional tribal courts, voided tribal laws, and reorganized jurisdiction in Indian Territory.
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| Dawes Act (1887) |
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This classic document in Native American legal history formalized the process of federal land dispossession. Section 6 made claims to the adoption of civilized life as a necessary precursor to Indigenous participation in allotment.
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| Indian Appropriation Bill (1902) |
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This senate appropriation bill outlined amended laws related to the Dawes Commission and the Five Tribes, which set timelines for critical tribal citizenship processes.
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| Indian Appropriations Act of 1893 |
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This appropriations act shows funding for a range of federal projects on tribal lands in the late nineteenth century. Monies were allocated toward payroll for agents, interpreters, surveyors, and boarding school superintendents, as well as traveling and various expenses for same; treaty stipulations and material support on reservations and treaty lands; boarding schools; and distribution on interest of trust fund stocks. The act shows key federal interventions in the establishment of institutions, as well as the commission later entitled the Dawes Commission.
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| Indian Appropriations Act of 1902 |
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Referred to as the "Dead Indian Act," this congressional act shows how privilege was given to guardians with the power to sell allotted land of minor heirs of deceased tribal citizens. The act also established a new federal judicial district in Indian Territory.
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| Indian Appropriations Act of 1904 |
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This act allocated funds for a wide variety of expenditures on Native lands including boarding schools, asylums, payroll, transportation, warehouses, police, judges, and medical supplies, and called for the liquidation of tribal land not already allotted to tribal citizens. It also removed alienation restrictions for some allottees on a case-by-case basis.
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| Indian Territory Citizenship Act (1901) |
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This act amended section six of the Dawes Act to give United States citizenship to all Native Americans residing in Indian Territory.
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 Indian Territory with Part of the Adjoining State of Kansas &c. (1866) |
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This map shows the treaty-designated territories of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole Nations after the conclusion of the Civil War and the signing of each tribe’s 1866 Treaty. Notably, the territories of each nation were significantly reduced.
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| Letter from Thirteen Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Pleading for Federal Assistance in Emancipating their Kin (1865) |
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This letter, formulated by a group of thirteen men who fled enslavement in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, details how Choctaw and Chickasaw enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage. The letter includes a plea for federal assistance in ensuring the freedom of the authors' family members, an exhibit with the names and locations of eighty people who were still enslaved in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and an accounting of how self-emancipated Black people were under threat of immediate death if they were to return to either nation.
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| Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) |
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After Congress attempted to pass legislation that violated the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, Kiowa chief Lone Wolf filed a complaint on behalf of the tribes who had signed the treaty. The Supreme Court sided with Congress and upheld the violation of the treaty.
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| McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020) |
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In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court found that the lands in eastern Oklahoma were under the legal jurisdiction of the tribal nations. This decision reestablished tribal sovereignty for the Five Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole.
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| Medicine Lodge Treaty (1867) |
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Signed between the United States government and several of the Great Plains Native American tribes, the Medicine Lodge Treaties were a series of treaties relocating these Native American groups to Indian Territory. The October 21, 1867 treaty relocated the Kiowa and Comanche people.
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| Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery (1924) |
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The introduction of Zitkala-Ša's groundbreaking report opened the scene on fraud facilitated by guardians, lawmakers, and county clerks at the expense of minors, heirs, and incompetents during early Oklahoma statehood, and focused on probate courts as a site of legal exploitation.
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| Seminole Agreement (1900) |
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This congressional act ratified an agreement with the Seminole Nation concerning allotment, like enrollment and laws of descent. The second proviso established matrilineal descent of lands, money, and property for heirs.
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