Five Civilized Tribes | Facts, Maps, & Significance (2024)

Five Civilized Tribes, term that has been used officially and unofficially since at least 1866 to designate the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians in Oklahoma (former Indian Territory). Beginning in 1874, they were dealt with as a single body by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of Interior, but there has never been any unification or overall organization of these tribes under that name.

The word civilized was applied to the five tribes because, broadly speaking, they had developed extensive economic ties with whites or had assimilated into American settler culture. Some members of these southeastern tribes had adopted European clothing, spoke English, practiced Christianity, and even owned slaves. In 1821 the Cherokee developed a written language, and by 1828 the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper, began publication. The Cherokee also established a strong central government with a constitution based on the U.S. constitution.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized Pres. Andrew Jackson to accelerate the westward movement of Europeans by relocating Indian tribes to unsettled land west of the Mississippi River. While the act had explicitly provided for the purchase of land from willing parties, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole had little desire to leave their established communities to begin anew beyond the frontier. When faced with forced removal, the Cherokee used the American federal court system to press their claims against the state of Georgia. Although the Supreme Court twice ruled in favour of the Cherokee nation, Georgia ignored the ruling, and Jackson is said to have declared privately, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Challenged by a U.S. government that refused to respect Indian property rights or the rulings of its own judiciary, the so-called Five Civilized Tribes were left with few options. The Seminole waged a prolonged and costly guerrilla war, but most of the tribe ultimately emigrated to the west. The process of forced removal came to be known as the Trail of Tears due to the unnecessary death and hardship that characterized it. The survivors were relocated to large adjoining tracts of land in the eastern part of Indian Territory. Here they maintained a significant degree of autonomy over their internal affairs until 1907. Each organized as a “nation,” with a written constitution and laws, and a republican government modeled on that of the U.S., consisting of an executive department (headed by an elected principal chief or governor), a bicameral legislature, and a judiciary with elected judges and trial by jury. Public school systems were instituted, in part supported by tribal funds and in part provided by Christian church missionaries.

During the American Civil War most tribes were divided between supporters of the Union and the Confederacy, providing soldiers for each army. Their territories were depopulated and devastated. Before this time, and especially following the reorganization of each nation after the war, economic and educational progress was rapid, and distinctive fusions of Indian and Anglo-American cultures developed.

When transcontinental railroads were built through Indian Territory and the settlement of adjoining states increased, the Five Civilized Tribes lost their independence. Between 1893 and 1907 (when Oklahoma became a state) the U.S. government forced the allotment of the tribal lands to individual, enrolled tribal members (including freedmen, former slaves of the Indians) and abrogated the national governments. Former tribal land was opened to white settlement, and many Indian allottees lost their land through unscrupulous practices. The tribal governments have continued in modified form to the present, but with significantly less sovereignty; all tribal members are full citizens of Oklahoma and the United States. The Bureau of Indian Affairs provides some services for enrolled tribal members, but no reservation system is in effect.