Author Description

The Oklahoma Land Rush was the greatest giveaway of land in history The government sponsored a series of races & lotteries in which thousands of settlers completed for lands formerly occupied by Indians. Farm, homesteads & cities were created. This Jackdaw tells the story of how land promised to the Indians in perpetuity was opened to white settlement. But it also tells of the homesteaders who struggled to establish civilization on the unsettled frontier. Five Broadsheet Essays * The Permanent Solution * The Impossible Dream * Harrison's Hoss Race * The Homesteaders * Statehood & Beyond Eleven Historical Documents * Sequoyah's Cherokee alphabet, 1821. * A congressional act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians & for their removal west of the Mississippi River, 1829, & a transcript. * Certificate from President James Polk to an Indian chief, 1846. * Boomer broadside: "Grand Rush for the Indian Territory," 1879. * A license to trade with Indians, 1883. * A map of the Indian Territory, 1885. * The first page of a presidential proclamation by Benjamin Harrison announcing the opening of the Oklahoma lands, 1889, & a transcript. * A map of the territory opened to settlement, 1889. * An application & final certificate for a homestead claim. * The first page of the act to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Oklahoma, 1889, & a transcript. * A presidential proclamation by Theodore Roosevelt admitting Oklahoma into the Union as a state, 1907.