Indian Territory (Oklahoma) Map 1883 Territorial Print - Tahlequah, Muskogee, Atoka

This map, titled simply "Indian Ty." on the sheet itself, is drawn from Cram's Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World, copyrighted 1883 by George Franklin Cram and published in Chicago by A.C. Shewey and Co. It's part of the first edition of Cram's first "mass production" world atlas, sixty-five maps meant to put detailed, current geography within reach of ordinary American households.

Printed in full or outline color at a scale of about 1:2,300,000, with relief in hachures and red and green used to set the territory's boundary apart from the surrounding public lands, the sheet maps Indian Territory as it stood in 1883, decades before Oklahoma statehood. It names the lands of the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw among the tribal regions shown, along with rivers and settlements scattered across the territory, a document of federal Indian Removal-era land policy and the tribal nations relocated there. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, the first line to cross the territory, had reached it barely a decade earlier, its route shown threading north to south across land that individual tribal members would not be permitted to buy or sell outside communal tribal ownership for another generation.

This print suits anyone with ties to Indian Territory or Oklahoma history, a family with roots among the tribal nations shown here, or a collector building a run of Cram's 1883 atlas maps. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift. Every print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes, so you can choose what fits your wall.