INDIAN TERRITORY (ante), the home of civilized or partially civilized remnants of once powerful aboriginal tribes,removed by the government from time to time from different parts of the union, and which, upon separate reservations and under forms of government established by themselves, are living at peace with each other and with the United States. In June, 1830, congress passed an act setting apart "all that part of the United States w. of the Mississippi, and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana or the territory of Arkansas," to be known as the Indian country. The region thus described formed a part of the Louisiana purchase of 1803 from France. Portions thereof have since been organized into new states and territories, and only • it remnant of the original Indian country now remains. To it has been added, however, a narrow adjoining strip of land w. of the 100th meridian which was ceded to the United States by Texas.
The territory contains 20 reservations, the names of which, with the extent of each in sq.m., are as follows :—Arrapahoe and Cheyenne, 6,715; Cherokee, 7,861; Chickasaw, 7,207; Choctaw, 10,450; Creek, 5,024; Kansas, Kiowa and Comanche, 4,369; Modoc, 6; Osage, 2,291; Olawa, 28+; Pawnee, 442; Peoria, 78+; Pottawatamie, 900; Quapaw, 88+; Sac and Fox, 750; Seminole, 312+; Senaca, 81; Shawnee, 21; Wichita, 1162; Wyandotte, 38+; total area appropriated, 47,039 sq.m, ; unassigned, about 22,00C .sq. miles.
White speculators and adventurers have often attempted to enter the territory and appropriate the lands not included in the reservations, but the government of the 'United States, in fulfillment of its treaty stipulations to the Indians, has prevented them. The latest movement of this kind was made in 1879, when the president issued his proclama tion warning those engaged therein to desist, and informing them that if they should enter the territory they would be expelled, if necessary, by an armed force. A bill was lately introduced in congress to erect the Indian country into a regular territory of the United States, thus opening its unsettled lands to the whites and subjecting the Indians to the very encroachments to avoid which they consented to go upon the reservations. It has been proposed in some quarters to make the Indians citizens, to place them under territorial government, and finally admit them as a state to the union. But to this plan there are some serious obstacles, not the least of which is the unwillingness of the Indians themselves to sacrifice the autonomy of their respective tribes and the governments of their own already existing. Though this may ultimately 1?e arrived at, it is not easy to
see how the government of the United States could suddctily force such a change upon them without violating the most solemn treaty obligations.
The population bf the territory, exclusive of white residents, is reported to numbet 74,140. The number of whites legally there is about 12.000, and besides them there are 3;000 others who would be excluded if the law were strictly enforced.
Agents representing the United States live among the various tribes, exercising a paternal oversight of the;r affairs, and protecting them from encroachments. They are appointed by the president with the consent of the senate, and, under existirg regulations of the Indian bureau, are nominated by the religious denominations which have missions among the tribes. Each tribe has its own internal government, but the United States courts have jurisdiction in civil actions where a white man is a party, in cases of crime against a white man, and of violations of the laws regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians.
It appears from the report of the commissioner of Indian affairs for 1873 that there were then in the territory 217,790 acres of cultivated land, producing in that year 1,299, 952 bush. of corn; 92,574 of wheat; 60,750 of oats; 198,740 of potatoes of barley; 6,500 of turnips; 138,745 tons of hay; 5,000 bales of cotton; and 4,000 lbs. of sugar. Furs were sold to the value of t193,560; and 3,930,468 ft. of lumber were sawed. The num ber of live stock was—horses, 212,155; cattle, 322,354; sheep, 13,100; swine, 430,445; total value, $9,408,187. In 1879 the number of acres of cultivated land had increased to 237,000, producing 565,400 bush. of wheat; 2,015,000 of corn; 200,500 of oats and bar ley; of vegetables; and 48,353 tons of hay.
There are more than 200 common schools and ten high schools in the territory, and in the former over 6,000 children. Nearly all the tribes have abandoned their pagan relig ions. The traffic in ardent- spirits is absolutely prohibited, and no other territory of the United States contains so many houses of worship, or so many Sunday-schools, with so numerous an attendance, as are found in this. See Inovistis, AMERICAN.