Oklahoma Emigration and Immigration: Difference between revisions

=== White Settlers  ===

 

Only a few thousand non-Indians lived in the Territory before 1889. After the Civil War, a few people from the South moved into the Indian Territory. Anyone wishing to live in this area needed permission from the Indians, but some white settlers tried to move into the Territory without permission.  

 

A mining boom in the 1870s brought Europeans into the Choctaw Nation (present-day southeastern Oklahoma). Descendants of Italian, Slavic, Greek, Welsh, Polish, and Russian miners still live in that area. Between 1878 and 1885, “Boomers” (other white settlers) tried unsuccessfully to take over Indian lands.  

 

In 1889 the “Unassigned Lands” (land not assigned to Indian tribes) in central Indian Territory were opened for settlement by non-Indians. This created the first of the famous Oklahoma land runs (see [[Oklahoma Land and Property|Land and Property]]). Approximately 50,000 settlers came the first year. Another run in 1893 brought 100,000 settlers, mostly to the “Cherokee Outlet” (northwestern Oklahoma).  

 

The land runs brought homesteaders from China, Japan, Mexico, England, France, and Canada, as well as from nearly every state. People from the southern states settled mostly in eastern and southern counties, while people from northern states favored the northern and western sections. Wheat farming attracted German Mennonites and Czechs to the northwestern counties.  

 

 

Between 1907 and 1920, the discovery of oil brought many people from other oil-producing areas and from the Midwest. The population of the state reached about 2,400,000 by 1930. The drought and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused thousands of farmers to move to urban areas or migrate west to California.