mesquiteroots

Mesquite Roots

Land Run of 1893, Oklahoma History, and the Trail of Tears

*In 1828, Congress gave the First Americans 9,400 square miles of western prairie in Indian Territory, in perpetuity, in preparation for their planned removal from Georgia.

*In 1830, Congress passed the Indian removal Act which was signed into law by President Jackson.

*In 1832, a Supreme Court decision established tribal sovereignty which protected the Indians in Georgia from United States laws.

*In 1838, President Jackson, the Indian Fighter, defied that decision and ordered General Winfield Scott to forcibly remove 17,000 peaceful Cherokees from their land in Georgia and move them a thousand miles to the Cherokee Outlet. Four thousand died from exposure and disease along the Trail Where They Cried.

*In 1883, a cartel of wealthy cattlemen formed the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association and leased six million acres in the Outlet from the Cherokees who were required to move from that land.

*In 1892, outgoing President Benjamin Harrison ordered the livestock removed from the Outlet in preparation for the last great land giveaway in the United States.

*In 1893, incoming President Grover Cleveland declared the last remnant of the Cherokee’s land in the Outlet open for settlement by thousands of eager pioneers in the third, and last, Land Run into Indian Territory.

*The Land Run of 1893 is where this story begins.

Mesquite Roots

by Earl Corbly and Don Corbly

This is a historical novel about the last great land giveaway in the United States, the Land Run of 1893. In Mesquite Roots you will discover how the early homesteaders learned to live on the prairies in the Indian Territory.
You will learn how to build a soddy, an over-jet, and a cat and clay chimney. Many of the events and people described in this book are factually true as are all of the locations.
You will be captivated by vivid descriptions of age-old Cherokee Indian rituals for birth, death, and marriage.
You will read how our government's shameful treatment of the Native Americans affected the life of Tiana, a Cherokee princess, and her Indian family.
You will follow the life of an Indian boy abandoned on the open prairie who was adopted by the young homesteading couple who found him, the remarkable way he obtained great personal wealth, and how he rose to prominence in Oklahoma and the United States Congress.

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