Foot-loose and fancy-free By Angie Debo

The Choctaw-Chickasaw treaty ceded the Leased District to the United States for $300,000. The Creek treaty ceded the western half of Creek lands—3,250,000 acres—for $975,168. The Seminoles ceded all of their land—2,169,080 acres—for $325, 362. The Seminoles further agreed to purchase 200,000 acres of land, a part of the tract of land recently acquired by the United States from the Creeks. The Seminoles would eventually purchase an additional tract of land in 1881, enlarging their new home to 375,000.

Settlements on land ceded by the Creeks and Seminoles also were limited to “such other civilized Indians as the United States may choose to settle thereon.”

Each of the Five Civilized Tribes agreed to admit two railroads—one rail line running east to west, the other north to south—across tribal lands.

Tribal settlements in the Cherokee Outlet as of 1889 were as follows: east of the Arkansas River, Osage and Kaw; west of the Arkansas, Oto and Missouri, Ponca, and Tonkawa. On Creak and Seminole land were the Sac and Fox, Pottawatomie and Shawnee, Iowa, and Kickapoo tribes.

The Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache tribes occupied a reservation more than 3,000,000 acres in extent in the southeastern part of the Leased District. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation was west of the 98^th meridian and south of the Cherokee Outlet.

The region between the North Fork of the Red River and the 100^th meridian, about 2,300 square miles in extent, was still in dispute between Texas and the United States. Texas had organized the area as Greer County and admitted more than 8,000 homesteaders.

The Cherokee Outlet comprised over 6,000,000 acres not occupied by Indian groups. “No Man’s Land” had no legal settlers, and was not officially attached to any state or territory. Greer County was settled only in part. A fourth region, the “Unassigned Lands,” containing 1,887,796 acres, became the first area opened to non-Indian settlement in 1889. It was near the center of the present state.