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Oklahoma History 750 The following information was excerpted from the work of Arrell Morgan Gibson, specifically, The Okla- homa Story, (University of Oklahoma Press 1978), and Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries (University of Oklahoma Press 1989). Oklahoma: A History of the Sooner State (University of Oklahoma Press 1964) by Edwin C. McReynolds was also used, along with Muriel Wright’s A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma (University of Oklahoma Press 1951), and Don G. Wyckoff’s Oklahoma Archeology: A 1981 Perspective (Uni- versity of Oklahoma, Archeological Survey 1981). • Additional information was provided by Jenk Jones Jr., Tulsa • David Hampton, Tulsa • Office of Archives and Records, Oklahoma Department of Librar- ies • Oklahoma Historical Society. Guide to Oklahoma Museums by David C. Hunt (University of Oklahoma Press, 1981) was used as a reference. 751 A Brief History of Oklahoma The Prehistoric Age Substantial evidence exists to demonstrate the first people were in Oklahoma approximately 11,000 years ago and more than 550 generations of Native Americans have lived here. More than 10,000 prehistoric sites are recorded for the state, and they are estimated to represent about 10 percent of the actual number, according to archaeologist Don G. Wyckoff. Some of these sites pertain to the lives of Oklahoma’s original settlers—the Wichita and Caddo, and perhaps such relative latecomers as the Kiowa Apache, Osage, Kiowa, and Comanche. All of these sites comprise an invaluable resource for learning about Oklahoma’s remarkable and diverse The Clovis people lived Native American heritage. in Oklahoma at the Given the distribution and ages of studies sites, Okla- homa was widely inhabited during prehistory. Among end of the last Ice Age, the earliest people were those who came and resided some 11,500 years ago. here at the end of the last Ice Age, some 11,500 years ago. These earliest cultures are: Clovis, 11,500 to 10,900 years ago; Folsom, 10,600 to 10,200 years ago; and Plainview, 10,000 to 9,500 years ago. Named after the Southern Plains locations where their distinctive artifacts were first discovered, these cultures are the material goods of Native American bands that occupied adjacent parts of Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico in different ways. All are so far back in prehistory that they cannot be linked directly to any historically known tribes. Oklahoma archaeologists have discovered good examples of places once occupied by these earliest people. At the Domebo Site in Caddo County, three Clovis-type spear points were found among the ribs and vertebrae of a Colombian mammoth. In Harper County, a major Folsom-age bison kill recently was uncovered near Fort Supply. Called the Cooper site, this location resulted from Folsom hunters trapping and spearing bison herds in a deep gully on three separate occa- sions. Perhaps a thousand years later, Native American hunters using the Plainview-style spear point killed a small herd at what is now called the Parry Ranch site in Jackson County. Approximately 8,000 years ago, Oklahoma was undergoing drastic environmental changes, and warm, dry weather was becoming prevalent. Bison herds became fewer, and people increasingly turned to hunting smaller game and gathering plants. Band territories became smaller as groups developed seasonal hunting-gathering patterns in favored localities. Among Oklahoma’s notable sites that bear witness to this lifeway are the 5,500–year-old Gore Pit site in Comanche County, the equally old Scott site in LeFlore County, and the 4,500–year-old Lawrence site in Nowata County. These sites have yielded a diverse array of chipped or ground stone tools along with remains of roasting ovens made from stones. Currently, professional and avocational archaeologists are documenting a previously unknown hunting-gathering people who lived here 5,000 years ago. Called the Calf Creek culture, these people left important camps in Murray, Garvin, Caddo, Kay, Tulsa, Muskogee, and Haskell counties. About 2,500 years ago, Oklahoma’s climate began to become more like that of today. As plant and animal communities like those in the 1800s emerged, Oklahoma’s Native Americans began to become farmers and important traders. The bow and arrow was in use 2,500 years ago, and 1,800–to–2,000–year-old clues to pottery making and farming are known from small villages studied in Delaware, Kay, Osage, and Ottawa counties. About 1,000 years ago, Oklahoma had major populations of farming villagers in the Panhandle, along the Washita River in Garvin and Caddo counties, along the Arkansas and Grand rivers in Wagoner, 752 Oklahoma Almanac Muskogee, Sequoyah, and LeFlore counties, and along Little River and its tributaries in McCurtain County. Some of these villagers constructed ceremonial centers that vied for power with other southeastern chiefdoms. Between 1,000 and 800 years ago, the Spiro site in LeFlore County was one of the most important political-religious centers known north of the Valley of Mexico. By 500 years ago, all of Oklahoma’s village societies were undergoing rapid change, in part due to climatic fluctuations, and out of this turmoil came the Wichita and Caddo people who were observed by the first Spanish and French explorers of the area. The Historic Age Whites first came to Oklahoma as explorers. Europeans discovered Oklahoma and its people in 1541, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led a gold expedition through western Oklahoma. Members of the expedition hunted buffalo and visited the camps of the Plains Apaches, the first Indian tribe the Spaniards met in Oklahoma. Coronado left a small group of missionaries who wished to work among the tribes teaching Christianity, putting Okla- homa under the Spanish flag. Another Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto, introduced some of the eastern tribes to firearms, tools, and other European ways, although he only traveled as far as Little Rock, Arkansas. De Soto encountered the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and other tribes then living in the southeastern United States, and who were later removed to Oklahoma. About 1700, two tribes from the North, the Comanches and Kiowas, migrated to Oklahoma. They settled in the Wichita Mountains where they adopted the horse; hunted buffalo; and raided Spanish settlements in Texas, northern Mexico, and New Mexico. Spaniards from New Mexico often came to Oklahoma to trade with the Comanches and Kiowas, and although they did not establish settlements in Oklahoma, they claimed Oklahoma as a part of their territory in North America. Next came the French from the North and the East. Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle led an expedition down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. The territory on the west bank of the Mississippi River he named Louisiana. Fur traders and other French expeditions moved inland from New Orleans, which the French founded in 1718. The first Frenchman to actu- ally visit Oklahoma was Juchereau de St. Denis. He explored land drained by the Red River, searching for places to establish settlements for trading with the tribes. In 1718 Bernard de la Harpe led an expedition to the Canadian River in eastern Oklahoma, that was inhabited by the Wichitas and Caddoes. The French established towns and lived with the tribal people. Oklahoma was under the French flag until the 1760s. The largest conflicts to take place during the 1700s were the battles between the Spanish and the Comanches and Kiowas in the West. The French, who wished to trade for the buffalo hides of the Comanches and Kiowas, sent members of the eastern tribes to trade and avoided conflict with them. In 1762 French and Spanish leaders signed a treaty. It required France to return Louisiana (which included the area of Oklahoma) to Spain. However, in 1800 a treaty between the French and Spanish governments required the return of Louisiana, including Oklahoma, to France. In 1803 ownership of Louisiana changed once again, when the United States government purchased it for $15 million. Oklahoma was now under the American flag. Soon after 1803, explorers, soldiers, and private citizens entered Oklahoma. Explorers came to study the land and resources and to map Oklahoma. Soldiers came to build forts and to guard the Oklahoma frontier. Spain still owned Texas and New Mexico, and were not very friendly neighbors at this time. Citizens included settlers, who came to establish farms and towns, and trappers and traders, who came to hunt fur-bearing animals and to supply tribes with goods. These pioneers found several tribes living here: Osages in northeastern Oklahoma History 753 Oklahoma’s tall grass prairies; Quapaws in eastern Oklahoma, ravaged by measles, small- pox, and other European diseases; the Wichitas and Caddoes in the southwest; and the Plains Apaches and Comanches living in western Oklahoma. The Osages, Comanches, and Kiowas fiercely resisted American pioneers. The western boundary of the territory was not established until 1806 and was the result of an expedition led by Captain Richard Sparks, the first American official to reach Oklahoma. His expedition was turned back by the Spanish. Another expedition that same year, led by Captain Zebulon M. Pike explored the Arkansas River and reached Oklahoma’s eastern border on New Year’s Day in 1807. Other explorers who visited the state: George C. Sibley accompanied by Osage scouts, explored northern Oklahoma along the Arkansas River and its tributaries; Stephen H. Long in 1817 established Fort Smith, Arkansas, between the Poteau and Arkansas rivers; and Thomas Nuttall, a sci- entist, came to Oklahoma in 1819 to study the geology, plants, and animals along the Grand, Verdigris, Cimarron, Poteau, and Arkansas rivers. Nuttall also wrote Journal of Travels in the Arkansas Territory, one of the earliest scientific books about Oklahoma. Through these early expeditions, maps, and reports prepared by the explorers assisted Ameri- can officials to make agreements about the southern and western boundaries separating the territory of the United States and Spain.

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