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Collection Feature: Chickasaw Land Allotment Patent

October 25th, 2013

On August 17, 1904, Thomas K. Whitthorne applied for an land allotment patent. In this document he was recognized as Chickasaw by intermarriage, and was therefore eligible to obtain 150 acres of land, “more or less, as the case may be,” within the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, Indian Territory. The document bears red seals of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations.

RH_MS_P_243

 Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, Land Allotment to Thomas K Whitthorne, 1904.
Call number RH MS P 243, Kansas Collection. Click image to enlarge.

Allotment Patent No. 10533 was approved and signed by the secretary and clerk of the United States Department of the Interior on February 26, 1906.  Then on November 29, 1905, the allotment patent was signed and sealed by the Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation, the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, approving Thomas K. Whitthorne’s application.

RH_MS_P_243_detail
Detail of Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, Land Allotment to Thomas K Whitthorne, 1904.
Call number RH MS P 243, Kansas Collection. Click image to enlarge.

The Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American nation, located in Oklahoma. They are one of the members of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Chickasaw Nation was created after the Chickasaw people were forcibly removed by the U.S. federal government to Indian Territory in the 1830s. Their removal was part of a larger effort by the federal government to relocate peoples from the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. The removals became known as the “Trail of Tears”.

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