The Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 was passed and signed into law with an amendment by U.S. Representative (congressman) William McKendree Springer (1836-1903), (Republican of Illinois) that authorized 23rd President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901, served 1889-1893), to open the two million acres (8,100 km2) of the western portion of the remaining Indian Territory (established in 1834 with a much greater allotment set aside for the southeastern native tribes of extensive lands of the previous Louisiana Purchase of 1803, west of the Mississippi River), during the administration of 7th President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, served 1829-1837).

It proposed that the tribes' communal lands be allocated to heads of households by 160-acre plots, to encourage them to adopt subsistence farming.

Approximately fifty thousand people; young and old, men and women rushed to try their luck in acquiring the 12,000 land tracts that were available.

[7] The main portions of the Choctaw tribe moved to Indian Territory from 1830 to 1833, with the promise that they would be granted autonomy and receive annuities to aid in resettlement.

Tribal leaders Chief John Ross, and other high-ranking families worked to keep their lands, challenging Georgia state actions against them.

[8][page needed] Chief John Ross believed that removal was inevitable and worked to gain the best deal possible from the federal government.

The tribe had adopted some European-American practices: gaining some formal education for their children, building churches, and farming.

[citation needed] After Texas was admitted into the Union in 1846, the US forced removal of the Caddo, Kiowa, and parts of the Comanche tribes in Indian Territory.

By 1880, the Wyandot, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Wichita, and other smaller tribes had been removed from surrounding states and reassigned to Indian Territory.

[15] Legislation was passed by Congress in 1866 that permitted railroads to be laid in sections of 40 miles (64 km) on either sides of the Indian Territory.

Railroad companies that came after them took it as their responsibility to finish the project, and saw a way to strengthen their contracts by introducing the movement of settlement in the Indian Territory.

[16] The railroads employed people such as C. C. Carpenter to spread false information in newspapers of the Indian Territory being open to settlement through Congress's Homestead Acts.

President Rutherford B. Hayes warned these early agitators for settlement (who came to be known as "boomers" in figurative reference to the loudness of their demands) against moving into the Indian lands.

[16] A number of the people who participated in the run entered the unoccupied land early and hid there until the legal time of entry to lay quick claim to some of the most choice homesteads.

This led to hundreds of legal contests that were decided first at local land offices and eventually by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

[17] The settlers who entered the territory at the legally appointed time are sometimes known as "boomers", although confusingly, the term also refers to those who campaigned for the opening of the lands, led by David L.

Then once settled in the Oklahoma Territory they organized themselves as a town-site company that sold lots of land from a range of $2–25 depending on the demand of the Boomer Movement.

On November 28, 1884, Payne met his end at a hotel in Kansas due to poison found in his glass of milk.

He rigorously studied all treaties, court cases, and laws regarding the Oklahoma land issue in order to present logical and concise boomer claims.

It was rebooted with the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad line across the middle of Indian Territory from Arkansas City, Kansas, to Gainesville, Texas.

[22] Certain that the lands would be opened to settlement shortly after the construction of the railroad was completed in the spring of 1887, the Oklahoma movement again slowed down.

[23] After Couch and company presented the bill to Congress, it faced opposition from state representatives George T. Barnes of Georgia, Charles E. Hooker of Mississippi, and Colonel G.W.

When the Land Rush took place, black families had been building their own way of life and culture since the Reconstruction era.

Even in the Oklahoma Territory, the five main Native American Tribes had to sign agreements with the US government that they would no longer practice slavery, and if they continued, they would be exempted from their land by the United States.

This plan failed, as there seemed to be less and less excitement of immigrating to the new land, and instead McCabe had to settle to being a treasurer in Logan County of Oklahoma.

[28][page needed] The attempts of people like Eagleson and McCabe were not completely futile as their support of the black family did enthuse many to continue to move to the Oklahoma Territory.

As Harper's Weekly reported: At twelve o'clock on Monday, April 22d, the resident population of Guthrie was nothing; before sundown it was at least ten thousand.

[34] The settler had to live on the claimed section of land for a five-year period and visibly improve it (including with buildings) before they could attain the title to the property.

[citation needed] Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, El Reno, Norman, and Stillwater were six of the townsites established in 1889.