Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States. Their tribal jurisdiction encompasses Oklahoma, Pottawatomie, and Lincoln Counties. Membership to the tribe requires a minimum blood quantum of ¼ Kickapoo decent.
HISTORY
The Kickapoo are a Woodland tribe, speaking an Algonquian language, and were related to the Sac and Fox. They first came into contact with Europeans in the mid-seventeenth century in southwestern Wisconsin. By the mid-18th century the Kickapoo lived in two communities, the “Prairie Band,” along Illinois’s Sangamon River, and the “Vermillion Band,” east of the Wabash River in Indiana.
The Prairie Kickapoo band resisted acculturation and continued to migrate, going first to Missouri and then to the Spanish province of Texas before the 1821 Mexican Revolution. Spanish officials gave them land in Texas. However, after the Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas did not want them. In 1839, they were forcibly removed, and many traveled to Mexico. There, the Mexican government gave the tribe a land grant and eventually placed them at Nacimiento in exchange for protecting their northern borders. Some Kickapoo decided to settle in two villages in Indian Territory. Some settled on Wild Horse Creek in the Chickasaw Nation, and the others settled in Creek Nation near the confluence of the Canadian and Little rivers. Many Kickapoo would eventually leave the Indian Territory during the Civil War and rejoin those in Mexico.
In 1873, a military scheme forced some of the Mexican Kickapoo to relocate to the Indian Territory. In 1883, they were assigned a reservation. However, after the enactment of the Kickapoo Allotment Act in 1893 they lost much of their land. This left the tribe desolate and in poverty, which they did not begin to recover from until the 1930s and finally in the 1960s with the help of federal government programs.
The Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma was organized under the Indian Welfare Act of 1936. Their headquarters are located in Mcloud, Oklahoma and is presently governed by a 5-member Business Committee. Many of them reside in Lincoln, Oklahoma, and Pottawatomie counties. Other tribe members currently live near Topeka, Kansas, Eagle Pass, Texas, and Nacimiento, Mexico.
Today, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma culture remains strong, and the language is still spoken. They offer many services and programs to their tribal members which seek to empower and improve their lives. This includes housing, scholarship opportunities, child welfare, and job opportunities. Tribal revenue is largely generated by the Kickapoo Casinos located in Harrah and Shawnee.
THE KICKAPOO TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA’S ORIGINAL RESERVATION BOUNDARIES OF SERVICES START WHERE THE DEEP FORK RIVER INTERSECTS WITH THE INDIAN MERIDIAN (NW), PRECEDING EAST ALONG THE DEEP FORK RIVER TO STATE HWY 18, THEN SOUTH ON HWY 18 TO NORTH OF THE CITY OF SHAWNEE, THEN WEST TO KICKAPOO STREET IN SHAWNEE, THEN SOUTH ON KICKAPOO STREET TO THE NORTH CANADIAN RIVER (NOW KNOWN AS THE OKLAHOMA RIVER), THEN WEST ALONG THE RIVER TO THE INDIAN MERIDIAN AND BACK NORTH TO THE BEGINNING.
