Red Earth: Race and Agriculture in Oklahoma Territory (review)

Farming on the southern Great Plains has been a risky endeavor since the white settlement of the region. In Oklahoma, agriculture probably produced more failures than successes during the territorial period. This book is the story of white, black, and Indian farmers who struggled against the environment, as well as against government policy, to coax a living from the soil. It is not the story of inevitable triumph and prosperity. Rather, it is a sobering account of the effects of racism and culture in Oklahoma's agricultural history.

Lynn-Sherow has written an overview of three distinct county settlements that serve as case studies for the ecological and social transformation of agriculture in the Oklahoma Territory. Significantly, she focused on the agricultural settlement of African Americans in Logan County, white settlers in Blaine County, and the Kiowas in Caddo County, all in relation to agricultural development between 1889 and 1906.

Lynn-Sherow is particularly interested in ecological changes resulting from the agricultural activities of these groups. She observes that although white and African-American settlers considered the Oklahoma Territory a virtual wilderness, the Indians, particularly the Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Kiowas, had used that area for a long time before white settlement. Moreover, the Native Americans traditionally used the land far differently than federal policy now required. Not surprisingly she found that racism and government policy prevented African-American and Indian farmers from succeeding in a market economy. Federal policy also jeopardized the traditional Indian economy through the allotment of lands authorized by the Dawes Act.

Lynn-Sherow makes the important observation that racism forced black farmers to travel from the towns where they lived, and received community support, to work the land, often as sharecroppers rather than landowners. She also notes that Indian farmers failed partly because agriculture in the white tradition destroyed traditional community life and culture. Racism also prevented government policy from providing the agricultural education and technical aid that African-American and Indian farmers needed to advance beyond subsistence to commercial agriculture. In contrast, white farmers increasingly borrowed capital and invested in land and machinery to participate in the market economy based on wheat and cattle rather than corn and cotton. Moreover, whites relegated black and Indian farmers to marginal lands where agricultural success became increasingly problematical. By the early twentieth century, few African Americans or Indians farmed.

Overall, Lynn-Sherow has provided a clearly written synthesis of the major factors affecting African-American, Indian, and white agriculture in the Oklahoma Territory. This study primarily is based on secondary historical literature, local newspapers, and government documents. Although it is not interdisciplinary, it merits the attention of anyone interested in the history of Oklahoma's agricultural frontier.