The Book of the National Parks

by Robert Sterling Yard

"The Big Sulphur Springs on Rock Creek in the Chickasaw Nation afterward became the centre around which the city of Sulphur was built, and after the town was grown to a population of two thousand or more it was removed bodily to make room for the Platt National Park, around which has been built the new city of Sulphur, which now has a population of forty-five hundred.

"Many of the Comanche monuments are extant and the great bluff above the Bromide Springs of the national park looks out toward the north and west over a prairie that extends to the Rocky Mountains; the monument that stood on the brow of that bluff must have been visible for many miles to the keen vision of the Comanche who knew how to look for it."

The Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma in 1907; the story of the white man's peaceful invasion is one of absorbing interest; the human spectacle of to-day is complex, even kaleidoscopic. In the thirties and forties the government had established in the territory the five civilized Indian nations, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, each with its allotted boundaries, its native government, its legislatures, and its courts. In many respects these were foreign nations within our boundaries. Besides them, the Osage Indians had their reservation in the north, and fragments of no less than seventeen other tribes lived on assigned territory.

Gradually white men invaded the land, purchased holdings from the Indian nations, built cities, established businesses of many kinds, ran railroads in all directions. In time, the nations were abolished and their remaining lands were divided up among the individuals composing them; the Indians of these nations became American citizens; their negro slaves, for they had been large slaveholders, received each his portion of the divided land. Then came Oklahoma.

To-day there is only one Indian reservation in the State, that of the Osages. Oil has been found on their land and they are the wealthiest people in the world to-day, the average cash income of each exceeding five thousand dollars a year. In a state with a total population of two and a quarter millions live 336,000 Indians representing twenty-three tribes and 110,000 negroes descended from slaves. There has been much intermarrying between Indians and whites, and some between Indians and blacks. Here is a mixture of races to baffle the keenest eye.

Elsewhere than in the Osage Reservation, wealth also has come to the Indians. Many have very large incomes, large even for the rich of our Eastern cities. Asphalt also has enriched many. Cotton is raised extensively in the southern counties. Grazing on a large scale has proved profitable. Many Indians own costly and luxurious homes, ride in automobiles, and enter importantly into business, politics, and the professions; these usually have more or less white blood. Many full-bloods who have grown rich without effort possess finely furnished bedrooms, and sleep on the floor in blankets; elaborate dining-rooms with costly table equipments, and eat cross-legged on the kitchen floor; gas-ranges, and cook over chip fires out-of-doors; automobiles, and ride blanketed ponies. Many wealthy men are deeply in debt because of useless luxuries which they have been persuaded to buy.

Platt National Park lies about the centre of what was once the Chickasaw nation. It is a grazing and a cotton country. There are thousands of Indians, many of them substantial citizens, some men of local influence. Native dress is seldom seen.

Quoting again from my correspondence with Colonel Sneed, here is the legend of the last of the Delawares:

"Along about 1840, a very few years after the Chickasaws and Choctaws had arrived in Indian Territory, a small band of about sixty Delaware Indians arrived in the Territory, having roved from Alabama through Mississippi and Missouri, and through the northwest portion of Arkansas. Being a small band, they decided to link their fortunes with those of some other tribe of Indians, and they first pitched their tepees with those of the Cherokees. But the Cherokee Chief and old Chief Wahpanucka of the Delawares did not agree. So the little band of Delawares continued rambling until they reached the Choctaw Nation, where they again tried to make terms with the Chief of the tribe. Evidently no agreement was reached between that Chief and Wahpanucka, for the Delawares continued their roving until they reached the Chickasaw Nation, where they remained.