Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“Endurance Strategies: Indigenous People in Central Oklahoma During the ‘Orgy of Exploitation,’” is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. In 1940, Angie Debo wrote about the “orgy of exploitation,” a period between 1898 and 1934 in which corrupt politicians and lawyers descended on and dismembered the territories of the Five Tribes. This session will examine the strategies of Indigenous people during this period. Topics include Sauk trader Moses Keokuk, who battled the Lincoln County treasurer’s office in territorial court; Citizen Pottawatomi urban planner Catherine Burnett, who used her husband’s capital and her allotment to construct a successful trading center that did not fall under territorial jurisdiction; Chickasaw businessman E. B. Johnson’s use of a grafting firm to help him swindle Native people in eastern Oklahoma; and Absentee Shawnee Chief Big Jim’s decision to move his people to a remote area in hopes of being left alone.
John Truden is a PhD student at the University of Oklahoma. His dissertation will explore Indigenous-settler relationships in Oklahoma between Reconstruction and the early Cold War. He has collaborated with the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, the Kanza Nation, and the Metropolitan Library System.
“Endurance Strategies: Indigenous People in Central Oklahoma During the ‘Orgy of Exploitation,’” is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. In 1940, Angie Debo wrote about the “orgy of exploitation,” a period between 1898 and 1934 in which corrupt politicians and lawyers descended on and dismembered the territories of the Five Tribes. This session will examine the strategies of Indigenous people during this period. Topics include Sauk trader Moses Keokuk, who battled the Lincoln County treasurer’s office in territorial court; Citizen Pottawatomi urban planner Catherine Burnett, who used her husband’s capital and her allotment to construct a successful trading center that did not fall under territorial jurisdiction; Chickasaw businessman E. B. Johnson’s use of a grafting firm to help him swindle Native people in eastern Oklahoma; and Absentee Shawnee Chief Big Jim’s decision to move his people to a remote area in hopes of being left alone.
John Truden is a PhD student at the University of Oklahoma. His dissertation will explore Indigenous-settler relationships in Oklahoma between Reconstruction and the early Cold War. He has collaborated with the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, the Kanza Nation, and the Metropolitan Library System.
