Boomer
In 1866, shortly after the Civil War, the Federal government forced many tribes in the Indian Territory into making concessions. The government accused the various tribes of abrogating the standing treaties by joining the Confederacy. As a result some two million acres (8,000 km²) of land in the center of Indian Territory were ceded to the United States and thought by many to be public domain land.
Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee citizen working as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., published an article about the public land issue in the February 17, 1879 edition of the Chicago Times. Dr. Morrison Munford of the Kansas City Times began referring to this tract as the "Unassigned Lands" or "Oklahoma" and to the people agitating for its settlement as Boomers. Munford is the first person to use the terms "boom" and "boomer" to describe the movement of white settlers into these lands. To prevent settlement of the land, President Rutherford B. Hayes issued a proclamation in April 1879 forbidding unlawful entry into Indian Territory.
Inspired by Boudinot, Payne began his efforts to enter and settle the public domain lands as allowed by existing law. He returned from his job in Washington and returned to Wichita in 1879. On his first attempt to enter Indian Territory, in April 1880, Payne and his party laid out a town they named "Ewing" on the present-day site of Oklahoma City. The Fourth Cavalry arrested them, took them to Fort Reno, then escorted them back to Kansas. Payne was furious, as public law (specifically the Posse Comitatus Act) prohibited the military from interfering in civil matters. Payne and his party were freed, which effectively denied them access to federal and state courts.
Anxious to prove his case in court, Payne and a larger group returned to Ewing in July 1879. The Army again arrested the party, escorted them back to Kansas, and freed them. This time, however, Payne was charged under the Indian Intercourse Act and brought to trial in Fort Smith, Arkansas in March 1881. Judge Isaac Parker ruled against Payne and fined him the maximum amount of US$1,000, but since Payne had no money and no property, the fine could not be collected. The ruling settled nothing about the public lands, however, and Payne continued his activities unabated. He organized and led several more expeditions into the territory, even forming a newspaper called the Oklahoma War Chief, the first in the Cherokee Outlet, which he published in several sites along the Kansas-Indian Territory border.
During one of his last ventures, Payne insisted on a public trial, so he and his group were hauled the group several hundred miles to Fort Smith. The trip began at Fort Reno and proceed to Fort Sill, Henrietta, Texas, Texarkana, Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas and then finally to Fort Smith. During another trip in July 1884, the army seized his Oklahoma War Chief press, burned his buildings, and took Payne and his group through the Cherokee Nation after their arrest. The party was paraded through the streets of Tahlequah, past the Indian people who hated him for his attempts to seize part of their lands.
Public sentiment grew so great over his mistreatment at the hands of the military that the government finally granted his trial. Payne was turned over to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas at Topeka. In the fall term, Judge Cassius G. Foster quashed the indictments and ruled that settling on the Unassigned Lands was not a criminal offense. Boomers celebrated, but the government refused to accept the decision.
Between expeditions, Payne often spoke to crowds of admirers and recruited more Boomers. The day after such an address in Wellington, Kansas on November 27, 1884, Payne collapsed and died of heart failure. His funeral filled the Methodist Episcopal Church in Wellington and thousands filed past his grave.
Payne's family moved his remains to Oklahoma in 1995. On April 22, 1996, a monument was dedicated at his final resting place in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Payne County, of which Stillwater is the county seat, which is named in his honor.
William L. Couch succeeded Payne as leader of the Boomer movement.
Read more about this topic: David L. Payne