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This webpage reproduces part of The Five Civilized Tribes by Grant Foreman University of Oklahoma Press Norman, Oklahoma, 1934 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 1

 (p13)  Introductory Note

Few of those old line Americans who look askance, and withal somewhat superciliously, upon the governmental experiments of certain of our younger states realize that such experiments are by no means new to their territory, and that five of a much more unique character were initiated and consummated before the present State of Oklahoma came into existence. These experiments consisted in the organization of as many bodies of American aborigines — the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creeks, Seminole, and Cherokee — into small red republics, voluntarily set in motion, and maintained with a considerable measure of success for more than half a century. Of course many other Indian tribes within our borders preserved some form of self-government long after intimate white contact, but, for the most part, these were mere continuations of existing forms. In the case of the Five Civilized Tribes we have attempts to cast Indian minds into new collective moulds which were in large measure of white origin and intended to lead the individuals composing them into an independent participation in white culture and white civilization. A comprehensive study of these experiments, while it should not fail to interest the citizen of Oklahoma, has a much wider appeal — to the historian, the sociologist, the economist, the student of law, the student of Christian missions and of religion in its wider aspects, but particularly to the man who is primarily concerned with race relations whether as scientist or as the administrator of some primitive tribe.

The story of the five republics constitutes from many points of view, therefore, a major problem, such as one of our larger foundations might well have been called upon to support if that other and more important question, the selection of a competent investigator, could have been satisfactorily determined upon. For research of this sort requires a rare combination of scholar­ship, industry, and patience, and  (p14) the presentation of its results an ability to select and coördinate significant matter and to weave it into a concise, carefully documented pattern through the medium of a lucid style. Above all there must be genuine enthusiasm for the subject in hand without which there is always danger of superficiality, carelessness, or repulsive ponderosity of expression which defeats the purposes of the whole undertaking.

Without the support of any such foundation, Oklahoma and the Five Civilized Tribes are fortunate in having a devoted volunteer to assume the tangible expenses and supply the intangible and invaluable services which this project demands. Dr. Foreman's several publications furnish a reference library on that side of Oklahoma history dealing with the Indian population of the eastern portion of the state which, at a modest estimate, involves three-fifths of her story and will be of permanent value to the citizens of the commonwealth, to all interested in her past and solicitous for her future, and to students of race relations everywhere.

The present volume takes up the narrative where Advancing the Frontier left it and carries on the story of native efforts for rehabilitation in a new home, efforts to maintain native control and self-derived culture with due adaptations to alien influences and altered conditions, and to keep open that possibility of leading "the better life" to which all normal humanity so fondly aspires. This work and its predecessors are permanent monuments to the virtues and the strivings, the successes and the failures, of the Indian and supply a record of contacts between Indians and whites with which it will be well for a member of the latter race to make himself familiar even though it contains all too much that he cannot contemplate with racial pride.

John R. Swanton

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