O is for...The Odyssey (Teaser Tuesday) & Oklahoma Land Runs

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:



1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Today's teaser is from Homer's The Odyssey.

"'And I anointed therewith the ears of all my men in their order, and in the ship they bound me hand and foot upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast they fastened rope-ends and themselves sat down, and smote the grey sea water with their oars. But when the ship was within the sound of a man's shout from the land, we fleeing swiftly on our way, the Sirens espied the swift ship speeding toward them, and they raised their clear-toned song.'" p. 703

klahoma Land Rush/Run

On April 22, 1889, about 50,000 people lined up, prepared to risk life and limb to race those around them to claim two million acres worth of land available in Oklahoma. This would be the first of several land runs to occur in Oklahoma, or Indian Territory, as it was then.

Decades before, Abraham Lincoln had passed the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed settlers to claim a piece of land up to 160 acres, settle it and improve it. If they did this, they would eventually get the title to that land without having paid for the land, itself.

Of course, it should also be mentioned that it was the Indian Appropriations Bill of 1889 that opened this land, formerly belonging to various Native tribes, that really made this all possible. Previous to this government-sponsored land grab, the Boomer Movement had been occurring, wherein groups of people were led into Indian Territory in the attempt to snatch up the most valuable lands they could find and settle them, stealing yet more land from the Native population, which had been forcibly moved to this land and promised that it would be theirs in perpetuity.

Initially, these Boomers were arrested when they made their treks in. They were led by David Payne. William Couch took over when he died. This went on from 1879 to 1884, only to have the Santa Fe Railroad invade Indian Territory a year after Couch stopped leading his expeditions. The Springer Amendment clenched the deal, and Indian Territory became open to settlement.

The government went through and separated the land into allotments, taking first one area, then another. After that initial Land Run, more occurred on the following dates:

September 22, 1891
April 19, 1892
September 16, 1893
May 3, 1895
August 1, 1901, though this was done as a lottery

The folks who lost their homes belonged to the following tribes:

Apache
Arapaho
Cherokee
Cheyenne
Comanche
Iowa
Kickapoo
Kiowa
Pottawattomie
Sac and Fox
Shawnee
Wichita-Caddo

The Great Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893 was the biggest, with over 100,000 people hoping to grab 6 million acres. This land was split into 42,000 parcels of land, meaning fewer than half those rushing to grab land were going to get anything.

To up their odds in these land rushes, some would sneak out ahead of time and hide on the parcel they intended to grab. They'd wait until notice was given, then jump up, staking their land. These people were referred to as Sooners. They weren't the only ones who obtained illegally. Many were taken off land they had reached first by force. Others discovered that about fifty U.S. Marshals had come out ahead of everyone else and snatched up choice pieces of land, despite the fact that no government employee was legally allowed to do so. This incident occurred in the 1893 Land Run.

No Indians were allowed to participate, only white folks. The hopeful participants gathered on the Kansas border in whatever form of transit they had, whether that was horse, wagon, foot or bicycle. When the shots were fired, they took off, racing madly for the piece of land they most wanted. Most wouldn't get it.

In the 1893 Land Run, the government had pre-designated Guthrie as the capital of this new territory. By that evening, there were shops and restaurants, set up hastily. Children sold water, as it turned out that water sources were scarce in this land. Food prices were sky-high in those first days, but people were hungry and thirsty, and they would pay whatever it took. Folks worked hard, laying out streets and talking about a tentative government.

Those first rough days saw many people giving up plots of land they had claimed when they found that the soil was mostly sand for quite a ways down. Eventually, though, wells were dug, and the people settled on their land, uncaring that it had belonged to another group of people before they came in and took it.

In 1907, this territory became the state of Oklahoma.

What are you reading? Setting aside who the land belonged to, is this something you would have enjoyed? Could you have nabbed yourself a piece of land?

May you find your Muse.

*Wagon Wheel used as letter O, courtesy of Midnight7 at clker.com
**Caption: Oklahoma Land Rush. en:John Sherwood is on the white horse. en:Elias McClenny is ahead of John. en:Fred McClenny is just behind John., Source: McClenny Family Picture Album], By Chris 73 at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
***"The Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889." John Steuart Curry, artist. Commissioned 1937, installed 1939.[1] FWA:PBA:Paintings and Sculptures for Public Buildings. Painting depicting race involving people in wagons, on horseback, and a bike to stake claims on land plots. One of the wagon canvas's says "Oklahoma or Bust." Building and city not identified., Record creator: Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945, ca. 1937, Current location: National Archives and Records AdministrationLink back to Institution infobox template, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (NLFDR), 4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, NY, 12538-1999., Wikimedia Commons