04/06/2023
On June 6th 1900:Nadir of American race relations: The United States Congress approved the 1892 Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache, by which 4,500 square miles (12,000 km2) of indigenous land in southwest Oklahoma had been purchased for a bargain price of 93 cents an acre for 29,000,000 acres. The act passed despite assertions by the affected tribes (the Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache) that the terms had been misrepresented and the agreement had not legally been ratified as required (under the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867) by 3/4 of the adult males of the tribe. A Kiowa chief named Lone Wolf brought suit in 1901 against the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Indians in the case of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1903). On July 4, 1900, President McKinley proclaimed the area open for settlement effective August 6, 1900.[18] Since the mid-20th century, the government has paid tens of millions of dollars in compensation settlements to the three tribes because of their claims of being defrauded in these issues of the treaty and allotments.
