Cherokee GRIP Howard, Ks Aug 13, 1884

[Roma Jean Turner]

     How do you like the eviction of the settlers on the Cherokee strip.  Women and children driven from their homes, their husbands and fathers shackled by colored troops, loaded into wagons and carried three hundred miles to be tried; their fences torn down, and their houses burned?  The story of the burning of Rock Falls, reads like a chapter out of the history of the late war on the Missouri border.  Still it wall all done by the orders of a Republican president and must be right. 

(I was intrigued by this article, but haven't had to time to research it.  Any of you history buffs know anything about this?  Roma)

[W. Gray]

I am guessing these folks were early squatters on federal or Indian land in Indian Territory that was reserved for something or someone else, such as cattle renters. They may have thought the land would be opened but when it was not they were moved out.

There were a lot of early squatters in Howard and Montgomery counties anticipating the land would soon be open who were thrown out by troops because the land belonged to the Osage. The family of Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame was one such squatting family.

Eventually, though, the numbers were too big for the troops to handle. After July 15, 1870 it did not matter because by this time the Osage had sold their land to the government and were moving south.

In the Cherokee Strip the Army apparently had the necessary manpower and the upper hand.