<P> In the early part of the 19th century, the U.S. government initiated a displacement of the existing societies living east of the Mississippi River, including The Five Tribes, to lands west of the river . This displacement initiative was dubbed the Indian Removal . The Indian Removal forced a significant number of the Five Tribes to Indian Territory in other parts of the North American continent . A significant number were displaced to the area that would, in future, become the state of Oklahoma . At the time of their removal, the tribes were suzerain nations . </P> <P> The federally legislated displacement of the tribes from their homes east of the Mississippi River took place over several decades during the series of removals, which is also known as the Trail of Tears . The territory to which they were displaced was, at the time, called Indian Territory, currently eastern Oklahoma . The most infamous removal was the Cherokee Trail of Tears of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren enforced the contentious Treaty of New Echota with the Cherokee Nation . One point of contention regarding the treaty is whether it is an instrument of mass displacement in violation of the human rights on which the new republic had been established, or a legal exchange of territory for land further west . </P> <P> During the American Civil War, the politics of the Five Tribes were divergent . The Choctaw and Chickasaw fought predominantly alongside the Confederates while the Creek and Seminole fought alongside the Union . The Cherokee fought a civil war within their own nation between the majority Confederates and the minority, pro-Union camps . As an element in Reconstruction after the Civil War, new Reconstruction Treaties were signed with the indigenous nations that had entered into treaties with the Confederate States of America . The Civil War was not good to the tribes . The first three battles of the Civil War were fought in Indian territory, with some tribes joining treaties with the Confederates, and others with the Union . </P> <P> Once the tribes had been relocated to Indian Territory, the United States government promised that their lands would be free of white settlement . Some settlers violated that with impunity, even before 1893, when the government opened the "Cherokee Strip" to outside settlement in the Oklahoma Land Run . In 1907, the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory were merged to form the state of Oklahoma . Relative to other states, all Five Tribes are represented in significant numbers in the population of Oklahoma today . </P>

Native american tribes east of the mississippi river