Indian Territory

Indian Territory, region west of Arkansas, into which the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes were forcibly moved under the 1830 Indian Removal Act. In 1866 they were penalized for supporting the South in the Civil War by having other tribes resettled in the western part of this territory. Massive white settlement of other portions after 1889 led to disorder and the collapse of tribal government; by 1906 white settlers outnumbered Native Americans six to one, and the territory was incorporated into the state of Oklahoma.