ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the transfer of federal control over townsite planning, the formalization of noncitizen claims to town lots, and the patterns of townsite settlement between 1896 and 1902. The idea that private landholding could alter cultural values and solve the "Indian problem" had lingered in federal Indian policy since Jefferson's administration. Philanthropists and religious leaders were not the only ones interested in eliminating Indian reservations. Municipal government in Cherokee towns was weak from the outset. Each incorporated town had a clerk, tax assessor, tax collector, constable, and other officers. A mandate for the passage of an allotment act using plenary power was attached to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1897. Occupants who established claims to town lots could obtain a title by completing a schedule of payments on the required percentage of the appraised lot value. In many ways, the Curtis Act was the beginning of the end of traditional tribal government in Indian Territory.
