Oklahoma History Exam 1

Cross Timbers

Early arrival confronted two things: Tallgrass prairies and the cross timbers.

The cross timbers, thick forests of post and blackjack oaks defined settlements in the region.

Spiro Mounds

• Active between 800-1450 

• 20 villages within 5 miles. 

• Center of western trading for Mississippian culture. 

• Political and religious center, as well. 

• Most of Spiro was destroyed by commercial and academic digs.

Wichitas

• Caddoan language peoples 

• Primarily centered around rivers 

  • 1,500 people at the most  

• Villages varied in sizes

• Operated as separate entities rather than a unified tribal group 

• Semi-nomadic depending on the season

  • In the winter the hunt buffalo because they can’t plant

  • In the spring they go back to the river to plant until the fall

Comanche

• A royal pain in the ass until the 1800s 

• Shoshones who hunted bison on the edges of the northern plains 

• Migrated south with lakota migration onto the plains 

• Most Shoshones stayed in the Great Basin but some moved to the southern plains 

  • They had horses, guns, and they were mobile

• Derived from the Ute word Komantcia which became the Comaches to the spanish 

• Lived in River Valleys but controlled a large area 

Twin Villages

• On the Red rivers with a villages on both sides

• Wichitas pushed and pulled to the Red River around 1750

• Twin Villages on either side of the river in Jefferson County 

• Heavily fortified that resisted Spanish attack in 1758 

• Weakened with the end of the French and Indian war 

Cibola

• Francisco Vasquez de Coronando set out to find Cibola in 1540 

  • 240 men went with him 60 soldiers, and supply trains carried what they need with about 800 Native Americans 

• Coronado only found the Pueblos in 1540 

• El Turco (The Turk) promised Coronado a rich kingdom deep in the interior 

• Coronado ordered him killed after being led to a large Wichita camp 

  • Died bankrupt 

Juan De Padilla

• A Missionary who went with Coronado in 1540 but he wasn't in it for the gold, he was there for god 

• De Padilla stayed with a Portuguese soldier and two indigenous converts 

• De Padilla was killed in Central Kansas 

• Three remaining party members traveled down I-35’s route to the Gulf 

Great Interior Seaway

• The western interior Seaway connected to Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean from about 100 million years ago to 66 million years ago  

• Tectonic activity lifted the sea floor creating the Arbuckles, ouachita, and wichita mountains 

• Swamps and marsh land developed in the Anadarko and Arkoma basins 

  • Oil, coal, and natural gas is created with sediment left here 

Thomas Nuttall

• Different view from Long because Long came in from the West while Nuttal came through the East 

• He was an English botanist 

• Traveled through the northern Louisiana Purchase 

• 1818-1820 traveled through Indian territory 

• “Expectant capitalists” sought out Indian territory thanks to Nuttall’s writing

Stephen Long

• Was sent out to figure out where the Arkansas and Red River began 

• Send to follow the Arkansas and Red Rivers from their headwaters

• Long went down the Canadian not the Red RIver 

• Called the American Desert because of their trip 

Worcester V. Georgia

• (1832) 

  • “A distinct community, occupying its own territory [in which] the laws of Georgia can have no force. 

  • This was a victory for the Cherokee nation

AP Chouteau

• established Three Forks in 1817 east of Tulsa was a hub for trading on the Arkansas, Verdigris, and Grand River 

  • He established a monopoly at the three forks 

• At first it was fur but then Buffalo becomes the biggest money maker

• Then people began trading grain and salt 

• Trade shifted from fur to agriculture 

Seqouyah

• Wanting to speak to his family in Georgia, he created a written alphabet 

• Service during War of 1812 inspired the syllabary’s creation  

• Completed by 1821, formally adopted in 1825

• Cherokee Phoenix available in both English and Cherokee 

• Higher literacy rates than surrounding non-whites

Treaty of New Echota

Signed in 1835 by a low member of the Cherokee tribe. The Treaty of New Echota ceded Cherokee lands to the U.S. government. Many regular Cherokees did not like the treaty with around 15,000 Cherokees signing a petition calling for the US to reject the Treaty. The Georgia Guard arrested John Ross, saying he had no power to dispute it. This Treaty forced the Cherokee people from their lands and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, where about 13 percent of the Cherokee population died.

John Ross

John Ross presented himself as an aristocrat, although he made money by running a ferry. Son of a Cherokee mother and Scottish father he became the Cherokee Council President in 1818. Ross would lead the Cherokee through Indian removal and the civil war.