Column: Tribes forced out of homelands across the nation

The end of the Civil War signaled a renewed effort on the part of the federal government to address “the Indian problem.”

During the first half of the century, as white settlers had moved further west, the major effort had focused on removal of tribes east of the Mississippi either through treaties or simply by usurping their land. But now in 1865, soldiers were returning home, the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862 allowing citizens to pay $1.25 for 160 acres of public land and the discovery of gold, soon found settlers encroaching on previous treaty arrangements.

Encounters between tribesmen and pioneers, somewhat diminished during the war, now escalated. Although the Custer massacre at the Little Bighorn in 1876 is probably the most well known western conflict, two others much further west involving Modoc and Nez Perce tribesman had a more direct impact on Northeastern Oklahoma.

Because the Five Civilized Tribes had aligned themselves with the Confederate States during the war, the sentiment in Congress was that “all bets were off” as far as treaties with most tribes were concerned. A new attitude, that of Manifest Destiny, the right of inevitable expansion, became the white man’s justification to remove Native Americans as they saw fit.