“And Still the Waters Run” tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the tribes owned the eastern half of what is now Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forests, coal, and oil. Their political and economic status was guaranteed by the federal government—until American settlers arrived. Congress abrogated treaties that it had promised would last “as long as the waters run,” and within a generation, the tribes were systematically stripped of their holdings, and were rescued from starvation only through public charity.
