Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
The Indian Territory (highlighted in red) in 1834
An artist's 2016 depiction of Spiro Mounds, a Caddoan Mississippian site, as seen from the west
A Caddo village near Anadarko, Oklahoma in the 1870s
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in North America before the arrival of Europeans.
The Cherokee Nation, formerly known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen, Absentee Shawnee, and Natchez Nation. As of 2023, over 450,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
Example of a Cherokee census card for Fairland, Oklahoma from the first few years of the 20th century.
Cherokee Nation Historic Courthouse in Tahlequah, built in 1849, is the oldest public building standing in the state of Oklahoma.
Cherokee Nation Marshal Service Patch
Basket weaving workshop sponsored by the nation.