Buck—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 
357 
successfully carried out, and the former reservations soon be¬ 
came an integral part of the territory. 1 
It had been the intention of the Interior department to open 
the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservations at the same time as 
the others which had been ceded, but delay had occurred in 
assigning the allotments to the Indians. Although they had 
agreed to take up land in severalty, when the time came they 
at first refused to act, and then, when finally induced to ful¬ 
fill their part of the agreement, the supply of money for it ran 
short. 2 However, the difficulties were all settled by spring, and 
on April 12, 1892, the President issued a proclamation open¬ 
ing to settlement at twelve o’clock noon, April 22nd, the three 
million acres remaining after the Indian allotments had been 
made. This reservation (Tract 4, Plate XII), lying as it 
does in the same belt as drought-stricken western Kansas, was 
looked upon with suspicion by the people of the Southwest. 
However, the eastern part was nearly all taken up during the 
summer, and quite a number of successful farms were located 
in the western part, which proved to be a fairly good agricul¬ 
tural region. 3 
When the Cherokee commission was established, it was auth¬ 
orized to offer to the Oherokees for their Outlet the same terms 
as those upon which the Creeks had given up their western 
claims, that is a dollar and a quarter per acre, deducting all pre¬ 
vious payments. The Indians, however, did not look with favor 
upon this proposition, as they were already getting a good in¬ 
come from the cattle leases and the corporations were offering to 
make a new fifteen year lease at a much higher rate. 4 In order 
to get rid of this competition, the Department of the Interior 
decided to consider these leases as invalid, and on the seven¬ 
teenth of February, 1890, a proclamation was issued ordering 
that all live stock be removed from the Strip before October 1st. 
The time was afterwards extended to Xovember 1st, and then 
1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 1, p. iv. 
2 Ibid., p. v. 
3 Ibid., 1892, vol. 3, p. 474. 
4 Ibid., 1889, vol. 1, p. xiii. 
