Item 003

OKLAHOMA

March 28, 1885, page 199 (Illustrated Article)

The "Oklahoma boomer" has come to be a familiar name of late. At present there are one thousand or more Oklahoma boomers. They are encamped on Cheeota Creek, six miles form Arkansas City, on the southern border of Kansas. To the south of them lies the Indian Territory. Nearly in the centre of that Territory stretches the Oklahoma country, an exceedingly fertile and attractive area. The boomers wish to march upon it, to settle in it, and to possess it. The United States government says that they must not do this; that the land is pledged to the Indians. The boomers declare that they will do it. United States troops are posted opposite the camp of the boomers, on the opposite side of Cheeota Creek. They have orders not to permit the boomers to set foot in the Indian Territory. Other United States troops are posted in the Territory—in the Oklahoma country—to guard it against the boomers. From the accounts that come to us there is likely to be an outbreak and blood-shed at any moment.

In November last died Captain David L. Payne, known better as Oklahoma Payne. He was the originator and first leader of the Oklahoma boomers. He was a man of obstinate convictions. He contended that the Oklahoma lands were public property, upon which he and his followers had the right to settle. These lands, as has been said, are fertile and desirable. They lie a little to the east of the centre of the Indian Territory. They cover about eighteen hundred square miles. From north to south at their longest part they measure sixty miles, and they stretch forty miles at the point of their greatest breadth. They are bounded on the north by the Cherokee strip of land lying west of the Arkansas River; on the east by the reservations of the Pawnee, Iowa, Kickapoo, and Pottawattomie tribes of Indians; on the south by the Canadian River; and on the west by the reservation of the Cheyenne and Arrapahoe Indians. In these limits are included 1,887,800 acres, half a million acres more than are comprised in the State of Delaware. Colonel Boudinot, a Cherokee, gave the name of Oklahoma to the country. It is a word of the Cherokee language, and signifies "the home of the red man." The shortest way into the Oklahoma country from Kansas is form Caldwell, on the Kansas border, along a stage road and cattle trail that runs to Fort Reno, on the western border of Oklahoma.

Captain Payne made his first raid into the Oklahoma country in July, 1880. President Hayes had issued a proclamation declaring an invasion of Oklahoma an offense against the law, and ordering interlopers out. Payne and his party were arrested by United States troops. He was tried civilly at Fort Worth, Texas; the court decided against him, and he was warned by Secretary Teller to keep out of the Indian lands. In 1882, with twenty-nine follower, he again pushed across the border, and settled in Oklahoma. The troops again drove him out. Again he went back, and in August last two squadrons of the Ninth United States Cavalry (colored) arrested him and the whole community which he had established at Rock Falls, and escorted them with their personal property, to the Kansas line. It is said that Payne at his death was worth $60,000.

Captain Couch succeeded to the command of the boomers on the death of Payne in November last. On the 15^th of January last, General Hatch, in command of the United States forces opposing the boomers, sent word to Couch from his head-quarters at Camp Russell, Indian Territory, warning him not to proceed in his scheme of colonization. Captain Couch, then at the head of 400 men, defied the United States officer. On January 23, General Hatch sent Lieutenant Day, with forty-two soldiers, to Captain Couch at his encampment at Stillwater. Lieutenant Day requested the boomers to quit. Captain Couch ordered them to prepare for battle, and Lieutenant Day retired. On January 25, General Hatch visited Couch’s camp in person, and offered him twenty-four hours in which to retreat. The general had at hand four companies from Fort Leavenworth, one from Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, one from Fort Lyon, Colorado, three from Fort Wingate, and three troops of cavalry from Fort Riley. After a parley, Couch made a conditional surrender, and on January 26 left the Territory with the honors of war. Troops and boomers fraternized immediately after the surrender.

The troops escorted the boomers to Arkansas City. There the boomers were received with applause by the citizens. A public meeting passed resolutions condemning the action of the government, and declaring the intention of an early renewal of the attempt to colonize the Oklahoma country. Captain Couch, H. H. Stafford, George W. Brown, and Colonel S. E. Wilcox were imprisoned in Arkansas City on a charge of conspiracy and rebellion against the United States government. They were arraigned at Wichita, Kansas, before United States Commissioner Sherman, and bound over in $1000 each for a hearing on February 10. While awaiting trial, Captain Couch presided at the boomers’ convention at Topeka, which assembled on February 3. Delegates from sixteen Oklahoma colonies were present. They declared that they represented twenty thousand boomers. A committee was appointed to prepare and publish an address to the people of the United States defining the position of the boomer, and also to present the case to President Cleveland, and to protest against interference with American citizens who contemplated settling on such lands in the Oklahoma country as did not belong to any Indian tribe. Arrangements were also made to send Sidney Clark, an ex-member of Congress, and S. N. Wood, an editor, of Topeka, East to present the case of the boomers more clearly to the President.

There was not sufficient evidence to convict Captain Couch and his associates at the trial on February 10. They are now at liberty, and Captain Couch is in command of the encampment of boomers on Cheeota Creek. It is said that many of the boomers are old soldiers, and that most of them are frontiersmen accustomed to arbitration by bullet.

On March 13, General Hatch telegraphed from Caldwell, Kansas, to the Secretary of War that there were then no trespassers upon the Indian Territory, though the boomers on Cheeota Creek were threatening to go over the line. Troops, he said, were stationed in the Territory, and would drive out any invaders.

On the same day President Cleveland issued a proclamation warning the boomers that they would be met by the troops if they attempted another raid upon the Oklahoma country.

The boomers again protested when they heard of this proclamation. They passed resolutions declaring that "a large number of cattle men and cattle syndicates: were occupying the Oklahoma country with permanent improvements for farming and grazing purposes. The resolutions were telegraphed to the President. On the same day Captain Couch announced that he would break camp on Monday, March 16, and move south into the Indian Territory. He called upon those who would follow him to be prepared with agricultural implements and sixty days’ rations, as he was going to stay. On the same day General Hatch announced that the boomers could not get through his line. He had six companies of the Ninth Cavalry (colored) directly opposed to the boomers, and plenty of other troops near by. He said they could successfully contend with 3000 or 4000 men.

The government at Washington says that the whole of the Indian Territory is guaranteed by the United States to the use of friendly Indian tribes forever. Squatters may not light upon it. If there are cattle men there, they are not permanent, and may be driven off at any moment.

March 28, 1885, page 199 (Illustrated Article)

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