Your version is what I call pop history, something you'd find on the history channel, and thus not entirely accurate. I'll try to help out here, although the history and settlement of Oklahoma is much too complicated for a post on a messageboard. The Trail of Tears wasn't in the late 1800s, nor was it a singular event. It was the result of a series of treaties between the US government and the Five Tribes between 1816 and 1828. Those treaties were designed to clear the tribes away from their homeland to allow for white settlement in parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida. The actual migration by the tribes lasted from about 1820 up to the 1840s, complicated by much reluctance. The Seminoles were the most reluctant to leave the swamps of Florida, and the government resorted to force, killing about a third of all Seminoles by the 1840s. The Five Tribes were forced onto unsettled land known as Indian Territory...today's Oklahoma. However, they mostly crammed into the eastern half, due to the foreign nature (ie, geography, climate, ecology, etc.) of the western half. White settlement of Indian Territory began in 1889 with the first of a dozen or so openings (five of which were conducted by land run) in central and western Oklahoma on tribal lands that were unoccupied and considered surplus. This would have been the procedure in land runs (though the land was already surveyed and staked into 40 acre lots), however, not all openings used that method. In ill-thought-out conclusion from the Texas school of OU football history. OU's football history cannot be summed up in a single year of off-the-field illegal activity by a hand full of student-athletes, and nor can Barry Switzer's career.
PrussianSooner I never said that the Trail of Tears was in the late 1800's. I said the LAND RUNS were and you agreed. I said that the land runs opened up land promised to the Indians and you agreed. You didn't dispute the fact that a Sooner was someone who went out ahead of the Boomers and jumped the claims. I didn't say Barry Switzers career was summed up in one year. These incidents happened over a period of several years and led to his downfall. So please point out once again if you will why my definition of a Sooner is wrong. Give us some educate!!!!! GEAUX TIGERS!!!!! LSU, 2003 TEAM OF DESTINY!!!!!!! 2003 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP, GOT ONE?
The Oklahoma Territory opened with the Land Run of 1889. Settlers from across the globe, seeking free land, made their way to the prairies of the plains to stake their claim to a new life. One of the few rules to claiming a lot of land was that all participants were to start at the same time, on the boom of a cannon. All settlers who started then were labeled as "Boomers" and the ones who went too soon were called "Sooners." Also, increasingly, "Sooner" came to be a synonym of Progressivism. The Sooner was an "energetic individual who travels ahead of the human procession." He was prosperous, ambitious, competent, a "can-do" individual. And Oklahoma was the Sooner State, the land of opportunity, enterprise and economic expansion, very much in the Progressive spirit that engulfed the old South in the 1920's. OU athletic teams were called either Rough Riders or Boomers for 10 years before the current Sooner nickname emerged in 1908. The university actually derived their name from a pep club called 'The Sooner Rooters.' The success of University of Oklahoma athletic teams over the years have made the nickname synonymous with winning.
Land runs opened up land already in the hands of the tribes. These tribal lands were not occupied by the Indians, and in fact, much of the area was already leased to white-owned cattle ranching operations. So it wasn't as if Indians were forced to move, because they simply didn't live on the land that was opened. Of course I didn't dispute that. Anybody with a general knowledge of the settlement of the West knows what a Sooner was. Hell, if they just watch the movie Far and Away they'd know who the Sooners were. No you didn't explicitly say that, but you definitely implied illegal activity summed up his career. And I'll add that your little trinitarian theory....that the historical definition of Sooner, the present day use of the term as a college mascot, combined with a handful of illegal incidents in the late 1980s somehow must mean that the OU football program is a criminal one, and that its seven national titles were obtained under false pretenses....is completely inane and smacks of penis envy.
Yep you are right Mike the Tiger.But were the settlers in this great land any differant?.Ask our Native American brothers. Mike your just a jack a$$ trying to make trouble between the fan's.I will be down there with my family that are LSU fan's & we & my Sooner friends plan on one HELL of a time.You go ahead & pick fights & let see who has the best time.
I played a part. Cherokee gal from Altus in 1970. Don't know her real name but everybody called her "Chief". That's when I quit drinking whiskey.
Boy, the truth hurts, don't it? I like that "progressivism" spin. I guess that's how Pretty Boy Floyd and Ma Barker and her boys justified robbin' banks and stuff. After all, they were a bunch of 'Prosperous, ambitious and can- do individuals". The competent part I'm not too sure of. Oh that "penis envy" is real good too. I guess that implies that I (we) as Tiger fans have something to be jealous of when it comes to the OU program. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if OU had 700 nc's and 40 Heisman winner's! I wouldn't trade being a Tiger fan for one second 'cause like I said before, championships ain't everything! So if a lack of nc's and Heisman's make me a loser in your eyes, buddy, then I'll wear them shoes proudly!!! At least I ain't a traitor to my home state! GEAUX TIGERS!!!! LSU, 2003 TEAM OF DESTINY!!! 2003 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP, GOT ONE?
