Tribal, Kickapoo of Oklahoma

KICKAPOO TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA -  The Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States.  The Kickapoo are a Woodland tribe, who speak an Algonquian language.   They are affiliated with the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, and the Mexican Kickapoo.

Kickapoo comes from their word "Kiwigapawa," which roughly translates into "he moves from here to there."   The tribe is part of the central Algonquian group and has close ethnic and linguistic connections with the Sac and Fox.  The Kickapoo were first recorded in history in about 1667-70 at the confluence of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers.   

A mere decade later, in 1832, the tribe ceded their lands in Missouri and were granted a "permanent" home south of the Delaware Nation in Kansas near Fort Leavenworth.  Around the same time as the Kickapoo moved into Kansas, some of them went to Texas, invited to settle there by the Spanish colonial governor to serve as a buffer between Mexico and American expansionists.  At the conclusion of the Texas Revolution, these groups moved south into Mexico.

The Mexican Kickapoos were to be removed to the Indian Territory, in the present State of Oklahoma to a location on the north fork of the Canadian River and provided with farm equipment to begin cultivation.  The adjustment was difficult and by 1883, they had still not been provided with a permanent title to the lands they were occupying.  By an executive order issued  August 15, 1883, the Kickapoo were granted the lands that they had been occupying near the southwest corner of the Sac and Fox Reservation which had been ceded in 1866 by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation for resettlement of freedmen and others.  Four years later with the passage of the Dawes Act pressure began mounting to secure fee simple title for the Oklahoma Kickapoo. On June 21, 1891 the tribe agreed to cede their reservation in exchange for 80 acre allotments for each tribesman.  The Kickapoo were "bitterly opposed" to allotment and fought the process until 1894.   283 Kickapoo received eighty-acre plots leaving 184,133 surplus acres for non-Indian settlement.

In 1895, after the Kickapoo finally consented to allotment, the final Oklahoma Land Run occurred on  May 23, 1895.  The Land Run of 1895 was the smallest of Oklahoma's five land runs, with approximately 10,000 participants.  Because of the large number of contested claims and the problems with Sooners the remaining two land openings in Oklahoma were lotteries.