A Gazetteer of Indian Territory (U.S. Geological Bulletin No. 248, Series F, Geography, 44)

Description

Students of Native American genealogy will welcome the re-publication of Henry Gannett’s Gazetteer of Indian Territory, first published in 1905. Gannett, geographer for the U.S. Geological Survey, oversaw the publication of the Gazetteer between the Oklahoma Land Rushes of 1889 to 1895 and Oklahoma’s admission as the 46th state in 1907. Indian Territory refers to those remaining southwest lands that had become home, primarily, to the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole) following their removal from the southeastern states in 1833. (Small reservations of Quapaw, Peoria, Modoc, Ottawa, Wyandot, and Shawnee dotted the northwestern corner of the territory.)

Indian Territory is bounded on the north by Kansas, on the east by Arkansas, on the south by Texas, and on the west by Oklahoma. Readers will find a valuable description of the region’s geological, geographical, demographic, and economic characteristics in Mr. Gannett’s Introduction. The bulk of the book, of course, consists of an alphabetical list of 2,100 place names, scattered through Indian Territory. The place names range from villages, to railway stations, to bodies of water, and to other natural formations. Each place name is identified in relation to the Indian nation on whose reservation it could be found and with reference to Indian Nation atlas sheets published separately by the U.S. Geological Survey. All in all, this is a great tool for researchers with ancestors among the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indian nations.