SURVEY AND SUBDIVISION OF INDIAN TERRITORY 
By Hexry Gannett, 
Chief Topographer, United States Geological Survey 
The condition of things in Indian Territory is anomalous. 
The Territory is an area of some 31,000 square miles, divided 
among what are called the Five Civilized Tribes — the Cherokees, 
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles — the reservation of 
each tribe being owned by the tribe. Such a thing as private 
ownership of land is unknown. Each individual entitled to do 
so is, however, ijermitted to take up and occup}' any land which 
is not already occupied, but in so doing he does not acquire title. 
The population of the Territory consists of some 50,000 In- 
dians, a few whites who have married Indian women and have 
thus acquired membership in the tribe, with the accompanying 
}>rivileges and emoluments ; a few thousand negroes, mostly the 
descendants of slaves, and a large number, variously estimated 
at from 1 00,000 to200,000,of whites, who are living in the Territory 
on sufferance, some legally upon the payment of a small tax, 
others without the shadow of right or authority. These latter 
are known as interlopers. 
As might be expected under this condition of affairs, the whites 
Avho have married Indian women, being much shrewder and 
more experienced than the Indians, have acquired by the right 
of occupation nearly all the landed property which is worth 
having in the Territory. They own, if it can be called owning, 
all the best farming and grazing land, all the timber land which 
is of immediate value, all the town sites, and all the mineral 
land which is worth having, and by leasing this property to 
whites they are rapidly acquiring great wealth. 
Although in many respects quite advanced in the arts of civili- 
zation, the governments established by these Indians are weak 
and insufficient. So far as the control of the Indians themselves 
is concerned, they may have ample power, but at present they 
are called on to cope with and control a large body of whites, 
outnumbering themselves at least three to one, and composed 
largely of the rough, lawless, frontier element ; indeed, were not 
the tribal governments reinforced by the power of the United 
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