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I definitely do feel like there's levels of "Southerness", and I've only lived in a couple places in Oklahoma, but I feel there's a difference between Oklahoma south of i-40 and north of 1-40 in my opinion.
When we moved to the northern part of Oklahoma is the first time I realized there was a distinct difference in the way the southern area sounded and the northern areas. Maybe not all, but many. I sounded like a hick from the sticks, imo and promptly went about changing my speaking voice. In later years when my brother married a very proper speaking Bostonian, he cultivated his Oklahoma drawl and still does. I don't sound like his wife does, but I sound much more like her than him. He sounds like he just fell off the turnip truck and his military service took him many places in this world. I do think the southern part of Oklahoma is more akin to the South than otherwise. The weather is even different since it's colder in the northern half.
It's southern, but not deep south southern; similar to a state like Kentucky. Plenty of rural white, Scots-Irish southern culture. However it lacks the prominent black American element intertwined in the culture like South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi etc.
Thanks for the link... interesting site. It mentions that Democrats are responsible for the Sundown Towns. Ironic since most African Americans are Democrats if they are registered to vote.
African Americans were solidly republican until the New Deal. So at the time of statehood this would have made more sense.
Oklahoma has probably more sundown towns than any other state because of the fact that slavery never existed in any of the newly settled areas and did not exist in the areas allotted to the western plains tribes. Even among the 5 tribes slavery was pretty much relegated to a very select few who owned bottomland.
As for your comment about Perry. It is interesting that in the land runs (which Perry was a part) the participants who entered from the north were generally Plains States Republicans. Those who entered from the south were mostly Texans (in the original run).
A very large demographic difference between Oklahoma and the south is the relative lack of African Americans, especially rural African Americans. Oklahoma is only 7.4% black, our largest minority groups are Hispanic and Native American.
This map shows the difference:
It's interesting to note that all four "Southern" states listed (neither Maryland nor Delaware can currently be called Southern) with higher percentages of German-Americans than Oklahoma border Ohio and Pennsylvania, both states where 28% of the population is of German ancestry. For numerous reasons, largely due to the existence of the plantation system, German immigrants largely avoided most Southern states, except Texas.
In two ancestries that define two different regions, Oklahoma has similar percentages to Arkansas, Virginia, and Florida. All considered (to different degrees) to be southern states.
In other words, this map showing Oklahoma to have a plurality of residents with German ancestries, while technically true, is NOT a map of Oklahoma's region (demographically or otherwise).
Last edited by Studying Okie; 07-25-2014 at 12:29 PM..
Reason: including misleading map
In two ancestries that define two different regions, Oklahoma has similar percentages to Arkansas, Virginia, and Florida. All considered (to different degrees) to be southern states.
In other words, this map showing Oklahoma to have a plurality of residents with German ancestries, while technically true, is NOT a map of Oklahoma's region (demographically or otherwise).
The deal is that Oklahoma has more residents who originated in the northern plains and the midwest than southern states. It makes sense that we do since we abut the northern plains states. Oklahoma is southern but much less so than the majority (if not all) of the other southern states.
The deal is that Oklahoma has more residents who originated in the northern plains and the midwest than southern states. It makes sense that we do since we abut the northern plains states. Oklahoma is southern but much less so than the majority (if not all) of the other southern states.
That isn't what this data means. To my knowledge, Oklahoma was settled more by southerners than by people from the midwest. This data shows that there is a significantly lower percentage of people with German ancestry in Oklahoma than in any of the midwestern states, and that Oklahoma being shaded the same as them is misleading. This data also shows that Oklahoma has a higher than average prevalence of people claiming American ancestry, which is unique to the southern states.
The reason ethnicity and origin of Oklahoma's settlers is important to the "southern vs midwestern" debate is that the people who moved to Oklahoma took their cultures with them. Plainly and simply, both the Midwest and the South are cultural regions more than topographic regions. Oklahoma has more land on the Great Plains than mountain land or swamp land or forested land, and so it's one of the Plains states. But culturally, Oklahoma has more southern culture than any other culture because it contains more southerners, and therefore is part of the South.
Cultural influence from the South came first with the 5 Civilized Tribes being forced to settle here. Many of the Indians had already adopted southern culture, language, lifestyle, were educated southern schools, and held slaves. When they moved to Oklahoma (back then it was unorganized territory), they brought this with them. By the time the Civil War rolled around all 5 tribes had signed treaties with the Confederacy and broken their treaties with the U.S. Government. U.S. troops in Oklahoma forts withdrew to defend Kansas (which had just become part of the Union), and rebel troops took possession of the forts guarding Oklahoma. The tribes even sent representatives to Richmond to the Confederate Congress (which they didn't have before in the U.S. Congress). There were some Indians (like the Cherokees) who didn't fight the U.S. Government and did fight their own tribesmen, but this was not a majority. The tribes, and Choctaws in particular, were strongly tied to the South economically. Without the South they would have no outlet for their cotton and corn, which was shipped down river to New Orleans. Oklahoma was controlled by Confederate infantry from elsewhere in the South until things went bad for the Confederacy and they needed to move the troops to guard important trade posts and cities in Texas and Arkansas. This left mostly Confederate Indians like Stand Watie to fight here. Union troops took back land in the northeastern part of Oklahoma, but couldn't stop the Confederate Indians from raiding their supply lines until 1865 when Stand Watie was the last Confederate General to surrender.
The war itself decimated the farms and villages of the 5 Civilized Tribes. They, like their counterparts in the rest of the former Confederacy, were ruined financially and physically. The U.S. Government renegotiated their treaties with the tribes in 1866 and that's when slavery was abolished in Oklahoma, and the freedmen had to be enrolled in each tribe. The Government took the western half of the territory to resettle plains tribes into it. These Reconstruction treaties were the first time the term Oklahoma was officially used.
Slavery was now illegal in Indian Territory, but there was still labor needed. Like the rest of the South, the practice known as sharecropping attracted impoverished people to do cheap farm work for land owners, who were still Indians. In the decades after the Civil War and before Oklahoma was divided into Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, thousands of white southerners and freedmen worked the cotton fields owned by Indians. This was everywhere in the eastern part of Oklahoma. It was illegal for anyone but members of the tribes to own land in the Indian Territory, but Indians would sell their land to whoever could buy it. There was virtually no migration into Oklahoma at this time except from white southerners escaping Reconstruction.
Greer County, Texas (or Jackson, Greer, Harmon, and part of Beckham counties, Oklahoma) was designated by the state of Texas to be settled by Confederate veterans. Arguably this area was part of Texas when it seceded from the Union, but was later considered to have been a part of the Indian Territory. Either way, white southerners settled this area before the land runs and paid taxes to the state of Texas.
Northern politicians pushed for the western portion of Indian Territory to be opened for settlement. In the 1866 treaties with the tribes they had basically confiscated the western half of Indian Territory and there was no permanent settlement there. People like the Boomers, led by Payne, would go into this territory and start settling. They would be thrown out each time, but eventually the territory was opened for settlement. By this time most of Texas, Kansas, and the other states with open, farmable land had already been settled.
The famous land runs occurred in the northwestern, north-central, and central portions of Oklahoma in 1889. Trains from Arkansas City, Kansas and Caldwell, Kansas brought people from the midwest into Oklahoma as far as Guthrie. Purcell in the Indian Territory was a staging point for people from the South (and the Indian Territory) to access the Oklahoma City area by train. Towns were established overnight and the first non-southern, permanent settlement began in Oklahoma. The land runs weren't clean or fair; some people died and others discovered that "Sooners" had already staked claims on the land. The next year Oklahoma Territory was officially formed.
By all accounts the majority of the land run settlers were in fact from the midwest. There are well-known Czech communities like Yukon and Prague, but the actual amount of European-born settlers was insignificant (the 1910 census shows that less than 10% of Oklahomans were European-born or had European-born parents).There were southerners in the land runs who settled the areas closest to their starting point, which was around Oklahoma City and Cleveland County. A Georgia southerner founded the Daily Oklahoman in 1889 in Oklahoma City, and it was known for being a pro-Democrat, pro-Jim Crow newspaper.
Since the land runs were not the ideal way to settle the territory, the U.S. Government decided to change the
format from land run to land lottery, and the southern portion of Oklahoma Territory was settled by people who were lucky enough to win the land lottery. These people weren't from the midwest, but from the South; mostly Texans. Basically in what was Oklahoma Territory, Northerners settled the parts close to Kansas, and Southerners settled the parts close to Texas. To this day the North-South cultural division can be seen simply by looking at a map of voter registration by county. Republicans represented the North, and therefore are the majority in the Northwestern part of the state, but in the Southwestern, Southeastern, and Northeastern parts of Oklahoma Democrats (representing the South) still form the majority. Numerous newspapers in the southern parts of the state have or had Democrat in the title of the paper. Today the OKC and Tulsa metros have majority Republican voters, but at least in Oklahoma County this was not the case until 2002.
In 1890 the Panhandle and its residents were made part of Oklahoma Territory. There were not a lot of people in this area. In 1896 Greer County was added to the territory by the Supreme Court.
Of course in 1907 the two territories were combined into the State of Oklahoma. Migration into Oklahoma continued beyond statehood, but not much. Until the Great Depression people still migrated into Oklahoma; more southerners flocked to the eastern part of the state and midwesterners flocked to the northern part of the state. Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Seminole County boomed during this period, mostly due to oil and not agriculture.
The population of Oklahoma Territory may have been half midwesterners and half southerners, or maybe even slightly favoring one group, but when you factor in the addition of the Indian Territory to this (with its population of white southerners, freedmen, and Indians), the balance at statehood easily favors people from the South. The territories had comparable populations in 1907.
The reason Southern Baptists dominate Oklahoma and that you can hear the Southern accent even in places like Enid and Guymon can be explained by cultural assimilation. When people from disparate backgrounds all converged on Oklahoma Territory, they had to interact with one another and form communities and economic opportunities. This explains the Southern accent in people who live in rural northwestern Oklahoma. In the communities sandwiched between the panhandle and the Kansas border, I wouldn't expect to hear a southern accent, but in Kingfisher, Stillwater, and other communities where there would have been midwesterners and southerners in close proximity, they certainly would pick up each other's dialect.
The European immigrant community would have felt a greater pressure to adopt Southern Baptist religion and the Southern accent. During World War I most German Language newspapers shut down in Oklahoma and cultural assimilation was much faster and more forced in these groups who would have been more culturally different than the midwestern settlers.
I would expect a person with roots in Woodward who has a German last name and whose family came from Nebraska to grow wheat would be less likely to describe themselves as a Southerner than someone from Wynnewood with an English last name and who knows about their great-great-grandfather who fought at Vicksburg who came to Oklahoma to grow cotton.
Tangible evidence of all of this can be seen in almost any place you look. Voter patterns and political information from the 20th century reflect a Democrat and southern-oriented Oklahoma. Drive down and see that the biggest church in town is most likely the First Baptist Church. Southern plants like magnolia trees, crepe myrtles, and live oak trees are grown all around. This is no longer true of the younger generation, but talk to people in small towns and you'll hear a southern accent. Your county or town is probably named after a railroad figure, Southern politician, or a place in Alabama or Mississippi. Listen to the music made in Oklahoma and it's most likely country music. Go to the state capitol and see the flag poles that now only fly the Oklahoma flag because it's no longer politically correct to fly the Confederate flag on one of the poles. The list goes on a mile.
There are certainly many things that I do not consider positive about Oklahoma's history (racism is the most prime example), but to ignore these things because they are unpleasant is wrong. Oklahoma being southern doesn't mean it is backwards or flawed; it just means it's southern.
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