Five Civilized Tribes

The term Five Civilized Tribes refers to the five Indian nations of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, and Seminole. These tribes established a system of government around 1820 with a chief, senate, and house of representatives modeled after the United States. The members of the tribes tried to adapt to the society of the European immigrants. The Cherokee Sequoyah introduced a rapidly spreading script, Christian missionaries were welcomed, and the ownership of black slaves also occurred.

The tribes were removed from their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi River and settled in Indian Territory (roughly the present-day state of Oklahoma) under the Indian Removal Act enacted in 1830. This deportation is known as the Trail of Tears. The War of Secession divided these societies because no decision could be made as to which side to support. Among the Cherokee, a civil war even broke out within their own tribe. The Chickasaw and Choctaw, on the other hand, joined the Southern states. Militarily, their territory was controlled by the Confederacy. This further weakened the position of the Indians against the Union government after the end of the war.

When the tribes were resettled again, the United States government promised them that their lands would not be settled by whites. Nevertheless, these covenants were violated by some settlers. In 1889, the western half of the land was finally opened for settlement by the government with the Oklahoma Land Run. After the project to convert the remaining Indian lands into the state of Sequoyah failed, the tribal lands were combined with the (white) Oklahoma Territory to form the state of Oklahoma in 1907. This ended the sovereignty administration of the tribal governments in their respective territories.