Sooners is the name given to

settler A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...

s who entered the

Unassigned Lands The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883, it was bounded by the Cher ...

illegally in what is now the state of

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

before the official start of the

Land Rush of 1889 The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of the former western portion of the federal Indian Territory, which had decades earlier since the 1830s been assigned to the Creek and Seminole native peoples. T ...

. The Unassigned Lands were a part of

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

that, after a lobbying campaign, were to be opened to American settlement in 1889. President

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a ...

officially proclaimed the Unassigned Lands open to settlement on April 22, 1889. As people lined up around the borders of the Oklahoma District, they waited for the official opening. It was not until noon that it officially was opened to settlement. The name derived from the "sooner clause" of ''Proclamation 288 — Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory'', which stated that anyone who entered and occupied the land prior to the opening time would be denied the right to claim land. The designation "Sooner" had a very negative connotation. While "Boomers" were merely expressing "pioneer spirit" in their desire to take and settle former Indian territory, Sooners were essentially stealing from other white settlers by cheating on the claim requirements to get better land. However, these negative connotations cooled as time passed after 1889 and land claims were settled. In 1908, the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

football team adopted the nickname "Sooners". The U.S. state of Oklahoma at times has been controversially nicknamed the "Sooner State" since the 1920s.

Characteristics

Sooners are not to be confused with deputy marshals, land surveyors, railroad employees, and others who were able to legally enter the territory early. Sooners who crossed into the territory illegally at night were originally also sometimes called "moonshiners" because they had entered "by the light of the moon". These Sooners would hide in ditches at night and suddenly appear to stake their claim after the land run started, hours ahead of legal settlers.

Relationship with Boomers

The term

Boomer Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the demographic cohort preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964 during the mid-20th century baby boom that fol ...

relating to Oklahoma refers to participants in the "Boomer Movement", white settlers who believed the Unassigned Lands were public property and open to anyone for settlement, not just Native American tribes. Their reasoning came from a clause in the

Homestead Act of 1862 The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

, which said that any settler could claim of public land. Some Boomers entered and were removed more than once by the United States Army. Those who actually observed the official start of the land run and began the race for free land often found choice sections of land already occupied by Sooners or, in some cases, by Boomers. Problems with Sooners continued with each successive land run; in an 1895 land run as much as half of the available land was taken by Sooners. Litigation between legitimate land-run participants and Sooners continued well into the 20th century, and eventually the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation ...

was given ultimate authority to settle the disputes.

Sports

In 1908, the University of Oklahoma adopted "Sooners" as the nickname of its football team, after having first tried "Rough Riders" and "

Boomers Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the demographic cohort preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964 during the mid-20th century baby boom that fol ...

". Eventually, Oklahoma became known as "The Sooner State". The school fight song is titled "

Boomer Sooner "Boomer Sooner" is the fight song for the University of Oklahoma (OU). The lyrics were written in 1905 by Arthur M. Alden, an OU student and son of a local jeweler in Norman. The tune is taken from " Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale Universit ...

". The school "mascot" is a replica of a 19th-century covered wagon, called the "

Sooner Schooner The Sooner Schooner is an official mascot of the sports teams of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Pulled by two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner, it is a scaled-down replica of the Studebaker Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Okl ...

". When the OU football team scores the Sooner Schooner is pulled across the field by a pair of ponies named "Boomer" and "Sooner". There are a pair of costumed mascots also named "Boomer" and "Sooner".

References

External links

* * * {{cite encyclopedia , first=Stan , last=Hoig , title=Boomer Movement , encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture , publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society , edition=online , date=2009 Indian Territory Oklahoma culture History of agriculture in the United States American regional nicknames Agriculture in Oklahoma Oklahoma Territory