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Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Since 2018, it has provided deeply reported, award-winning coverage of issues of importance to Oklahoma.  With bureaus in Norman, Lawton and Washington supervised by professional journalists with decades of experience, the media service delivers news via dozens of partner news organizations serving 3.4 million Oklahomans.

They called it the “Indian problem.” The white settlers wanted more land, and the tribes held rich acreages. Removing tribes from the Southeast was more than just an idea by the time Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828. The Indian Removal Act was among his defining pieces of legislation. Jackson argued that moving tribes west of the Mississippi River would guarantee their survival.  Instead it launched an era of genocide. Thousands died during the forced marches to land designated as Indian Territory. For members of the 39 tribes in Oklahoma, the removal stories have not been forgotten. Neither has the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, intended to assimilate Native Americans into white society by stripping them of their cultural and social traditions. The ramifications persist today.