“Oklahoma!” -- Oscar Hammerstein II (Lyrics) and Richard Rodgers (Music)
When the Antebellum Democratic Party elected to commit political suicide by firing upon Fort Sumter in that direful Spring of 1861, one of the most unlikely populations to rally to the Confederate banner was the Five Civilized Tribes -- the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole peoples -- dwelling within the semi-sovereign region then known as the “Indian Territory.”
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Indian Territory (1873)
As we already know, entente with the Confederacy did not work out well for the denizens of the Indian Territory. The rebellious tribal forces fought tenaciously, waging cruel and inglorious war in service to an ignoble cause. Stand Watie, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and Brigadier General of the First Indian Brigade of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, on 25 June 1865 became the final Southern flag officer to lay down arms.
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| Stand Watie |
The United States did not feel especially generous to those Native Americans siding with the Confederacy. Perhaps Stand Watie’s ruthless slaughters of black Americans whose sole sin was to decline his invitation to remain the chattel property of Southern taskmasters did much to dampen any sympathy he might have commanded in the free North. Even before the bloodletting reached, Union lawmakers enacted the Abrogation of Treaties Act of 1862 allowing the president to void United States treaty obligations with those tribes actually hostile to the Union.
The Five Tribes flawed decision to assist the Confederacy hastened the already accelerating destruction of Native American cultures. All semblance of sovereignty rapidly faded. In the decades following the Civil War, railroads combined with cattle ranching opened the Indian Territory to increasing encroachment by illegal white settlers. Legal settlement also ensued in a series of “land runs,” the most famous of which was the “Land Run of 1889.”
Ironically, a well meaning legislator, Charles Curtis (Republican -- Kansas), ensured the demise of the Indian Territory by pushing the passage of the ironically entitled "Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory," better known perhaps as the Curtis Act of 1898 after its progenitor. Representative was born to a mother of Native American and French ancestry. He had spent much of his childhood on the Klaw Reservation in Kansas before that tribe’s forced relocation in the Indian Territory, speaking Kansa before learning English. Curtis was indeed Native American, but he was no less white, being the son of a father of British ancestry.
Curtis would be the first individual boasting substantial Native American descent to serve in the US Senate (1907-13, 1915-29) and as vice-president of the United States (1929-33). But in 1898, he was merely a member of the Kansas delegation to the US House Representative. Curtis believed his fellow Klaw would be best served by following his lead -- abandoning the Reservation life, embracing US citizenship, and otherwise assimilating into the broader American culture. The bill he sponsored would promote these goals. The authority of Native Americans courts and governing bodies were reduced. Commonly-owned tribal lands were parceled and given to families for private use. And most fatally, Native American lands deemed “surplus” by the federal government -- about 90-million acres -- were made available for sell to white settlers and businesses.
Ironically, a well meaning legislator, Charles Curtis (Republican -- Kansas), ensured the demise of the Indian Territory by pushing the passage of the ironically entitled "Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory," better known perhaps as the Curtis Act of 1898 after its progenitor. Representative was born to a mother of Native American and French ancestry. He had spent much of his childhood on the Klaw Reservation in Kansas before that tribe’s forced relocation in the Indian Territory, speaking Kansa before learning English. Curtis was indeed Native American, but he was no less white, being the son of a father of British ancestry.
Curtis would be the first individual boasting substantial Native American descent to serve in the US Senate (1907-13, 1915-29) and as vice-president of the United States (1929-33). But in 1898, he was merely a member of the Kansas delegation to the US House Representative. Curtis believed his fellow Klaw would be best served by following his lead -- abandoning the Reservation life, embracing US citizenship, and otherwise assimilating into the broader American culture. The bill he sponsored would promote these goals. The authority of Native Americans courts and governing bodies were reduced. Commonly-owned tribal lands were parceled and given to families for private use. And most fatally, Native American lands deemed “surplus” by the federal government -- about 90-million acres -- were made available for sell to white settlers and businesses.
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Charles Curtis in 1931,
31st Vice President of the United States
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The road to Hell, we are warned, is paved with good intentions, and Curtis did have the best of intentions. The recipients of his efforts sought to avail themselves of his best efforts. There were two abortive attempts to incorporate at least some part of Indian Territory as Sequoyah, the first Native American state, but Congress rejected such initiatives. On 16 November 1907, with the approval of Congress, the Indian Territory became a thing of the past and Oklahoma became the 46th state of the Union.
On 31 March 1933, the first collaborative effort from the incomparable team of Rodgers and Hammerstein opened on Broadway. Essentially a loving tribute to the state for which it draws it name, Oklahoma! tells of the courtship between smitten cowboy Curly and the independently-minded farm lass Laurley against the backdrop of Oklahoma incipient statehood. All-in-all, Oklahoma! serves as a worthy offering to demonstrate why the names of Rodgers and Hammerstein loom so large in musical theatre.
They couldn't pick a better time to start in life!
It ain't too early and it ain't too late
Startin’ as a farmer with a brand new wife
Soon be liv-in’ in a brand new state!
Brand new state
Gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and per-taters
Pasture for the cattle
Spinach and ter-may-ters
Flowers on the prairie where the June bugs zoom!
Plen'y of of air and plen'y of room
Plenty o' room to swing a rope
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope!
Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain
Oklahoma ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk
Makin’ lazy circles in the sky
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand
And when we say
Yeow! A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY
We're only sayin "You're doing fine Oklahoma!"
Oklahoma, OK
Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, Oklahoma
Where the wav-in’ wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain
Oklahoma ev'ry night my honey lamb and I (Every night!)
We sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin’ lazy circles in the sky
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand
Yippi-i
Yippi-i
Yippi-i
Yippi-i
Yippi-i
Yippi-i
And when we say
Yeow! A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY
We’re only say-in’ "you're doing fine Oklahoma
Oklahoma you’re OK"
Okla-homa
Okla-homa
Okla-homa
Okla-homa
Okla-homa
Okla-
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand
And when we say
Yeow! A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY
We’re only say-in "you're doing fine Oklahoma,
Oklahoma"
O-k-L-A-H-O-M-A
Oklahoma!
Yeow!
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