The restless land hunger that drew thousands of men into the Boomer Movement to open the "Oklahoma" district of Indian Territory to settlement is a phenomon of power and human determination. The movement was best expressed in the character of David L. Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer and border adventurer in the mold of Sam Houston or Buffalo Bill Cody. Payne was not content to settle down to the tedium of a sedentary life. He was a border leader, searching for places where a restless spirit could meet the challenges of a hazardous life. American Indians of the "Five Civilized Tribes," cattlemen, and the federal government offered strong opposition to opening the territory, but that only made Payne work with greater effort to force the opening of the unassigned lands to white settlement. Land Hunger is more than a biography, because David Payne's life from 1879 to 1884 was so dedicated to the Boomer cause. His story also portrays one of the most bizarre and exciting episodes of the frontier--the opening of the last lands in America available for free settlement--leading ultimately to the great land run of 1889 and the formation of the state of Oklahoma. Payne's death in 1884 inspired W. L. Couch and other Boomer leaders to carry on. Carl Coke Roster illuminates the role of Payne and other Boomers against the background of a raw and cruelly exacting frontier.

Land Hunger: David L. Payne and the Oklahoma Boomers (The Mid-American Frontier)

History

Rister, Carl Coke

Americas

Ayer Co. Pub

No homeseekers were ever plagued with more bad luck than those who followed the Englishman John Charles Beales to southern Texas late in 1834. On the banks of Las Moras Creek, not far from the Rio Grande, they established the colony of Dolores. Among them were the British-born Sarah Ann Horn and her husband and two small sons. For the pretty Sarah Ann, who shared her neighbors' fear of Comanche raids, the year or so in Dolores was a preview of a special hell to come. The threat of an invasion by Santa Anna, an uncongenial climate, a lack of trees for lumber, an unnavigable river, crop failures, and a scarcity of commodities contributed to the colonists' discouragement and discord. 
In Comanche Bondage the distinguished southwestern historian Carl Coke Rister has written the history of the Dolores enterprise, drawing on Beale's journals and other documents, and including reports of the survivors. Leaving Dolores in the wake of news about the Alamo and Goliad disasters, the Horn family and their neighbors the Harrises headed toward Matamoras. They never arrived there. Later a broken Sarah Ann Horn told the horrifying story of the murder of the men and of the years of captivity she and Mrs. Harris and their children endured at the hands of the Comanches. Rister has edited and annotated her 1839 narrative, which complements and extends his account of Beales's folly.

Comanche Bondage

Worcester, Donald E.

Biographies & Memoirs

Bison Books

Fort Griffin on the Texas Frontier by Carl Coke Rister.

Fort Griffin on the Texas Frontier

Univ of Oklahoma Pr

Oil! Titan of the Southwest is the exciting yet unbiased account of one of the most spectacular series of events in American history: the rush for oil riches in the great Mid-Continent and Gulf producing area, from the era of the Indians’ oil springs through the blustery years of wildcatting to the recent more orderly, but equally dramatic period of exploration and development.
Here is the story of the discovery and production of oil in this rich domain, embracing the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. More than a history of the development of an industry, this absorbing narrative relates the rise of the giant corporations, the struggles of the independents, the adoption of scientific methods, and the emergence of controls.

Oil: Titan of the Southwest

University of Oklahoma Press

The restless land hunger that drew thousands of men into the Boomer Movement to open the “Oklahoma” district of Indian Territory to settlement is a phenomon of power and human determination. The movement was best expressed in the character of David L. Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer and border adventurer in the mold of Sam Houston or Buffalo Bill Cody. Payne was not content to settle down to the tedium of a sedentary life.   He was a border leader, searching for places where a restless spirit could meet the challenges of a hazardous life. American Indians of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” cattlemen, and the federal government offered strong opposition to opening the territory, but that only made Payne work with greater effort to force the opening of the unassigned lands to white settlement.                Land Hunger is more than a biography, because David Payne’s life from 1879 to 1884 was so dedicated to the Boomer cause. His story also portrays one of the most bizarre and exciting episodes of the frontier—the opening of the last lands in America available for free settlement—leading ultimately to the great land run of 1889 and the formation of the state of Oklahoma.   Payne’s death in 1884 inspired W. L. Couch and other Boomer leaders to carry on. Carl Coke Roster illuminates the role of Payne and other Boomers against the background of a raw and cruelly exacting frontier.

Land Hunger: David L. Payne and the Oklahoma Boomers

Historical

Border command; General Phil Sheridan in the West

Greenwood Press

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