Oklahoma

C

Judicial

The judicial power of Oklahoma is vested in a supreme court, which has nine members, a court of criminal appeals, a court of appeals, and district courts. The term of office for justices of the supreme court and of the two appeals courts is six years. The supreme court and two appeals court judges are appointed by the governor from a list provided by the Judicial Nominating Commission. After one year of service they stand for election on their record. District judges and associate district judges serve for four years and are elected on nonpartisan ballots.

D

Local Government

Oklahoma is divided into 77 counties. Most counties are governed by a board of three commissioners, elected for two years. Other officials, also elected for two years, are the county judge, county attorney, court clerk, county clerk, sheriff, treasurer, registrar of deeds, and surveyor.

Most cities of 2,500 or more use a council-city manager form of government. Others use a mayor-council or other municipal format. The governing body for each school district is the school board, having from three to seven members. Many school districts are larger than the incorporated limits of the towns or cities they service, and their boundaries frequently cross county boundaries.

E

National Representation

Oklahoma elects two senators and five representatives to the Congress of the United States. This gives the state seven electoral votes in presidential elections.

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VIII

History

A

Earliest Inhabitants

The first humans appeared in Oklahoma about 15,000 years ago. These nomadic hunters were members of what archaeologists call the Clovis and Folsom cultures, after the name of the arrowheads they used to hunt animals. Later peoples lived in caves, projecting ledges, and overhanging bluffs, notably along the streams of northeastern Oklahoma and in the Panhandle. About 4000 bc these peoples moved to the riverbanks and built villages of mud and wattle dwellings. Near Spiro, along the Arkansas border, archaeologists have discovered remains of a sophisticated culture that flourished from 500 bc to ad 1300. These peoples, called Mound Builders, built large earthen mounds as sites for their temples. Excavations of these mounds have revealed pottery, textiles, and metalwork with a high level of craftsmanship.

Sometime after 1200 the Mound Builders were attacked by peoples from the western plains, and the Mound Builder culture declined. Native peoples identified by early European explorers indicate that communities of Wichita, Caddo, Quapaw, and Kiowa-Apache lived in scattered villages along the rivers of Oklahoma.

B

Spanish and French Exploration

The Spanish were the first Europeans to visit Oklahoma. From their bases in Mexico and the Caribbean, Spanish explorers called conquistadors explored the present-day southern United States during the mid-1500s in search of gold and silver. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado crossed western Oklahoma in 1541 searching for the Seven Cities of Cíbola, Cale, and Quivira, which he believed to be wealthy kingdoms. To Coronado’s great disappointment, Quivira proved to be a Wichita community in what is now Kansas. In 1601 Juan de Oñate, the founder of the Spanish colony of New Mexico, also led parties from Spanish settlements on the Río Grande east along the Canadian River, exploring north to the Arkansas River and south into the Wichita Mountains.

The French entered the Southwest following the explorations of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in the 1680s. In 1682 La Salle claimed all the land drained by the Mississippi River (including present-day Oklahoma) for Louis XIV, king of France, and named the region Louisiane (in English, Louisiana). French fur traders then moved into Oklahoma along the Red and the Arkansas rivers. In 1719 Bernard de la Harpe established military posts and trading stations in Oklahoma. Among the better-known French settlements were Fernandina on the Arkansas River in northern Oklahoma and the villages of San Bernardo and San Teodoro on the Red River in the south.

At the close of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the last in a series of wars between Great Britain and France for domination in North America, France ceded Louisiana to Spain to avoid losing the land to Britain. Little changed in the administration of Louisiana while in Spanish hands, and French fur traders continued doing business with the native peoples of Oklahoma. In 1800 France regained the Louisiana Territory and then sold it to the United States in 1803. In 1819 Spain and the United States negotiated the Adams-Onis Treaty, which defined the boundary separating the territory of these two nations in the Southwest. A portion of this boundary, the Red River and the 100th meridian, became the southern and western boundary of the present state of Oklahoma.

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