Respuesta :
Economic analysis of Oklahoma prior to white settlement is complicated by the cultures of the Five Tribes. Some members of those groups had adopted the dominant white culture's modern economic and political systems prior to Removal. Others, frequently full blood, did not wish to become part of the modern sector. There was thus a dual economy. The modern sectors of the Five Tribes apparently prospered during the period from removal to the Civil War. Tribal governments were reestablished, and although the land was owned collectively, the tribes granted effective control to large-scale landholders raising cotton and livestock. No doubt per capita incomes grew significantly during this "Golden Era."
The Civil War was an economic disaster for the Five Tribes. The North-South conflict was played out in miniature in the territory. Assets were destroyed and agricultural activities interrupted. After the war ended, punitive measures against tribes that had sided with the South involved confiscation of their lands in the western half of the state.
From the Civil War until the initial land run in 1889, the western half of Indian Territory served as the destination for the removal of various additional tribes from the western United States. These Indians, as well as those who already lived there, continued their traditional activities of hunting and subsistence agriculture and were not part of a modern economy. In the eastern half, however, there was rapid economic recovery spurred by railroad construction, expansion of timber and coal mining, and immigration of a substantial number of whites. The growth of the non-Indian population grew remarkably. A census of the Indian agency with jurisdiction over the Five Tribes reported an 1888 total population of 177,000, only 37 percent of whom were members of those tribes.
