Editing Five Civilized Tribes (section)

===19th century===
[[File:Boundaries of the Five Tribes in 1866.svg|thumb|The boundaries of the Five Civilized Tribes in 1866]]
[[File:Cherokee National Capitol.jpg|thumb|[[Cherokee National Capitol|Cherokee Nation Historic Courthouse]] in [[Tahlequah, Oklahoma]], built in 1849, the oldest public building in present-day [[Oklahoma]]<ref>Moser, George W. [http://www.leftmoon.com/cherokee10/history.asp A Brief History of Cherokee Lodge #10.] (retrieved 26 June 2009)</ref>]]

In the early 19th century, under such leaders as [[Andrew Jackson]], elected president in 1828, and others, the US government formally initiated [[Indian removal]], forcing those tribes still living east of the [[Mississippi River]], including the Five Tribes, to lands west of the river. Congress passed authorizing legislation in 1830, to fund such moves and arrange for new lands in what became known as [[Indian Territory#Five Civilized Tribes|Indian Territory]] to the west. Most members of the Five Tribes were forced to Indian Territory before 1840, many to what later became the states of Kansas and [[Oklahoma]].<!-- Both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were in current boundaries of Oklahoma --> The [[Cherokee Nation (19th century)|Cherokee Nation]] resisted removal until 1838 and lost thousands of members in removal, along what they called the [[Cherokee removal|Cherokee Trail of Tears]]. President [[Martin Van Buren]] had enforced the [[Treaty of New Echota]], although the Senate had not ratified it, and a majority of the tribe said they had not agreed to its cessions of communal land.{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}}

Once the tribes had been relocated to Indian Territory, the US government promised that their lands would be free of American settlers. But settlers soon began to violate that, and enforcement was difficult in the western frontier.

====Freedmen of the Five Tribes====
{{Main|Choctaw freedmen|Cherokee freedmen controversy|Creek Freedmen|Black Seminoles}}
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2021}}

The Five Tribes participated in [[Native American slave ownership]] that had enslaved Black people before and during the [[American Civil War]]. The Five Tribes largely supported the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], which had severed ties with the [[Union (Civil War)|Union]] prior to the war, in large part because they were promised their own state if the Confederacy won.<ref>{{cite web |title=Confederacy signs treaties with Native Americans |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/confederacy-signs-treaties-with-native-americans |access-date=30 July 2021}}</ref> During removal to Indian Territory, "the Five Tribes considered enslaved Black people an ideal way of transporting capital to the West" because they were "movable  property."<ref name="Roberts2021">{{Cite book|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk4gEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1|title=I've Been Here All the While: Black freedom on Native Land|year=2021|isbn=978-0-8122-9798-0|location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=39–45|oclc=1240582535}}</ref>

After the end of the Civil War, the US required these tribes to make new peace treaties, and to emancipate their slaves, as slaves had been emancipated and were granted citizenship in the US. All Five Tribes acknowledged "in writing that, because of the agreements they had made with the Confederate States during the Civil War, previous treaties made with the United States would no longer be upheld, thus prompting the need for a new treaty and an opportunity for the United States to fulfill its goal of wrenching more land" from their grasp.<ref name="Roberts2021" />

They were required to offer full citizenship in their tribes to those freedmen who wanted to stay with the tribes. Those who wanted to leave could become US citizens. By that time, numerous families had intermarried or had other personal ties with African Americans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Frank |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e3_BbNscm90C |title=General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians  |date=1998 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |page=9780806130354 |isbn=978-0-8061-3035-4}}</ref>

The [[Emancipation Proclamation]] of 1863 declared all slaves in the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], which were states that had separated from the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]], to be permanently free. The proclamation did not fully end slavery in the five [[border states (American Civil War)|border states]] that remained in the Union, but slavery everywhere in the nation was abolished with the ratification of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] to the [[United States Constitution]] in December 1865.

The [[Civil Rights Act of 1866]], passed over the veto of [[President Andrew Johnson]], gave ex-slaves full [[citizenship]], except for voting, in the United States. The [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] was ratified to make clear that Congress had the legal authority to do so.<ref>{{cite web |author=National Archives and Records Administration |title=14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868) |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment |website=National Archives |date=7 September 2021 |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> The [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] extended the franchise to all adult males; only adult males among Whites had previously had the franchise, and it was sometimes limited by certain requirements. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are known as the "civil rights amendments", the "post-Civil War amendments", and the "[[Reconstruction Amendments]]".

To help freedmen transition from slavery to freedom, including a free labor market, President [[Abraham Lincoln]] created the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], which assigned agents throughout the former Confederate states. The Bureau also founded schools to educate freedmen, both adults and children; helped freedmen negotiate labor contracts; and tried to minimize violence against freedmen. The era of [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] was an attempt to establish new governments in the former Confederacy and to bring freedmen into society as voting citizens. Northern church bodies, such as the [[American Missionary Association]] and the [[Freewill Baptists]], sent teachers to the South to assist in educating freedmen and their children, and eventually established several colleges for higher education. [[United States Army|US Army]] occupation soldiers were stationed throughout the South via military districts enacted by the [[Reconstruction Acts]]; they tried to protect freedmen in voting polls and public facilities from violence and intimidation by White Southerners, which were common throughout the region.<!-- What is the point of this history about Reconstruction in the US? -->

The Chickasaw were allied with the Confederacy. After the Civil War, the US government required the nation also to make a new peace treaty in 1866. It included the provision that they [[emancipate]] the [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved African Americans]] and provide full citizenship to those who wanted to stay in the Chickasaw Nation. The Chickasaw and Choctaw negotiated new treaties "without a clause accepting their guilt, allowing them to declare that they had been forced into a Confederate alliance by American desertion." Unlike other tribes, Chickasaw tribal leaders never offered freedpeople citizenship. The slaves were freed and they could continue to live within the boundaries of the nation as second-class citizens, or they could move to Union states and no longer be associated with the tribe, which meant they did not participate in the [[Dawes Rolls]] of the 1890s, which registered tribal members.<ref name="Roberts2021" />

The Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association of Oklahoma currently represents the interests of freedmen descendants in both of these tribes.<ref>"[http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/8-chocfreed.htm The Choctaw Freedmen of Oklahoma]", african-nativeamerican.com, accessed October 17, 2013.</ref> The freed people of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations were able to enjoy most citizenship rights immediately after emancipation.<ref name="Roberts202147">{{Cite book|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk4gEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA47|title=I've Been Here All the While: Black freedom on Native Land|year=2021|isbn=978-0-8122-9798-0|location=Philadelphia|page=47|oclc=1240582535 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press }}</ref>

But the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma never granted citizenship to their Freedmen.<!-- Isn't this a repetition of previous content and cite by same author? --><ref name="Roberts2017">{{cite news|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|title=A federal court has ruled blood cannot determine tribal citizenship. Here's why that matters.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/09/07/a-federal-court-has-ruled-blood-cannot-determine-tribal-citizenship-heres-why-that-matters/|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=September 7, 2017|access-date=July 18, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Herrera |first1=Allison |title=Interview: Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton Talks About Freedmen Citizenship |url=https://www.kosu.org/local-news/2021-09-21/interview-choctaw-nation-chief-gary-batton-talks-about-freedmen-citizenship?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_KOSU_Daily_9212021)&mc_cid=2dc0bd6883&mc_eid=ba79188045 |work=KOSU_Daily |access-date=21 September 2021 |agency=NPR |publisher=KOSU |date=September 21, 2021}}</ref> They enacted legislation similar to the US [[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]], which set certain wages for ex-slaves and attempted to force freed people to find employment under Indian tribal members.<ref name="Roberts202147" />

The only way that African Americans could become citizens of the Chickasaw Nation at that time was to have one or more Chickasaw parents, or to petition for citizenship and go through the process available to other non-Natives, even if they were known to have been of partial Chickasaw descent in an earlier generation. Because the Chickasaw Nation did not provide citizenship to their freedmen after the American Civil War, which they felt would be akin to formal adoption of individuals into the tribe, they were penalized by the US government. It took more than half of their territory, with no compensation. They lost territory that had been negotiated in treaties in exchange for their use after removal from the Southeast.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}

In the late 19th century, under the [[Dawes Act]] and related legislation, the US government decided to break up communal tribal lands, allocating 160-acre plots to heads of households of enrolled members of the tribes. It determined that land left over was "surplus" and could be sold, including to non-Native Americans. Allotment was also a means to extinguish Indian title to these lands, and the US government required the dissolution of tribal governments prior to admission of the territories as the US state of Oklahoma.

As American settlement increased in the [[Oklahoma Territory]], pressure built to combine the territories and admit Oklahoma as a state.

In 1893, the government opened the "[[Cherokee Outlet|Cherokee Strip]]" to outside settlement in the [[Land Run of 1893|Oklahoma Land Run]].