Buck—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 343 
It having now become evident that Congress would take no 
step toward opening Oklahoma until arrangements had been 
made with the Indians^ the President, acting under the author¬ 
ization of 1885, made a treaty with the Creeks on January 19, 
1889, by which they agreed to convey to the United States a 
complete title to the land ceded by the treaty of 1866 in con¬ 
sideration of a little over two million dollars. This arrange’ 
ment was ratified by act of Congress March 1, 1889 (25 Stats., 
735), and was followed by a section tacked on to the Indian ap¬ 
propriation bill of March 2nd (25 Stats., 1004), which appro¬ 
priated a slightly smaller sum to pay the Seminoles for the 
lands ceded to them in 1866, and provided for opening to set¬ 
tlement the land thus acquired by proclamation of the Presi¬ 
dent. All of this land was in the possession and occupancy of 
various Indian tribes, except the one million, eight hundred 
and eighty-eight thousand acres of Oklahoma proper, and so a 
proclamation was issued March 23, 1889, defining this area 
(Tract 16, Plate XII^,^and declaring it open to homestead 
settlement after twelve o’clock noon, the twenty-second of April, 
1889. 1 At last the dream of the “boomer” was to be realized 
and he was to be permitted to make a home for himself on 
government land in the fertile Oklahoma district. 
OKLAHOMA OPENED TO SETTLEMENT. 
The law under which Oklahoma was opened (25 Stats., 
1004) made no provision whatever for the government of the 
territory. It merely provided that it should become a part of 
the public domain and be disposed of in accordance with the 
homestead laws to qualified persons, in areas not to exceed one, 
hundred and sixty acres for each settler. Sections 16 and 36 
of each township were reserved for the benefit of the public 
schools, and it was further provided that anyone who should 
enter prior to the opening should forfeit the right to homestead 
any lands thereon. The only jurisdiction of any sort over the 
district was that of the courts of Texas, Kansas and Arkansas, 
i Sfec. Int. Rept., 1889, vol. 1, pp. 95-103. 
