Buck—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 353 
who were in the territory prior to the opening applied as well 
to those who were legally there as to intruders, deprived many 
of the deputy marshals and railroad employes of their easily 
gotten claims. 1 
The people who settled Oklahoma were for over a year en¬ 
tirely without any law or organized government excepting that 
established by common consent. Finally, in May 1890, an act 
was passed by Congress (26 Stats., 80) organizing them into a 
territory. This act; provided that “all that, portion of the 
United States now known as the Indian Territory, except so 
much as is actually occupied by the five civilized tribes, and 
the Indian tribes within the Quapaw Agency, and except the 
unoccupied part of the Cherokee Outlet, together with that por¬ 
tion of the United States known as the Public Land Strip, is 
hereby erected into a temporary government by the name of 
the Territory of Oklahoma.” It was further provided that the 
Cherokee Outlet should become a portion of the territory with¬ 
out further legislation as soon as the Indian title should be ex¬ 
tinguished, and also that any other lands in Indian Territory 
might thereafter become a part of Oklahoma, whenever the In¬ 
dian tribes owning such lands should signify their assent. 
The act established seven counties in the territory, numbered 
from one to six in Oklahoma proper, the seventh being Beaver 
county in the Public Land Strip, and county seats were desig¬ 
nated for each. The laws of 'Nebraska, such as were not lo¬ 
cally inapplicable, were extended over Oklahoma until the leg¬ 
islature should have an opportunity to frame a; new code. All 
lands in the Public Land Strip were declared open to settle¬ 
ment and a land office was established at Beaver, but preference 
Was to be given to “all actual and bona, fide settlers upon and 
occupants of the land” at the time of the passage of the act. 
Another act of the fourteenth of May (26 Stats., 109) re¬ 
lieved the town-site situation by providing for the 1 establish¬ 
ment of a commission to take the plaoe of the regular officers as 
trustees for the town-site. 
On the fifteenth of May 1890, George W. Steele was ap- 
1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1890, vol. 1, p. xix. 
6—S. & A, 
