How fast can you run to get free land? It may sound like a game show premise, but this is a wild west fact, and on September 16, 1893, over 100,000 people settlers fought for their lives, or at least for their land, leading to the largest land war in history.
Come get it
After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Oklahoma prairie, which the U.S. government considered barren wasteland, was gifted fairly generously to the local Native Americans. rice field. was then adopted. But as more and more settlers roamed the Great Plains, they found the land to be better than they thought, and in 1890 President Benjamin Harrison called for it to be requisitioned, and the natives who lived there Banned grazing leases on “unallocated” land to allow don’t take advantage of it. From there it was not difficult to persuade them to sell the land to the government. The government has opened eight million acres, known as the Cherokee Strip, to anyone who wants to come and claim their rights here.
On Your Marks
On September 16, 1893, the Cherokee Stripland Run (a land claim system that requires settlers to wait at the starting line before running to pick up their belongings) was scheduled to begin at noon. When gunfire rang out, more than 100,000 people, many of them newly arrived immigrants, rushed out on horseback, bicycles and even on foot in search of the best housing. Land brokers and officials patrolled the area, recording claims and keeping the peace. It was soon suggested that some settlers had crept into the area before the rural exodus began claiming land early, but there was no evidence and the authorities could do little. I didn’t. that. Nonetheless, these people became known as the “Sooners” and the name lived on as a nickname for the University of Oklahoma football team.