At 11:42 PM 9/22/98 EDT, Okiecad@aol.com wrote: >Cindy, >What is an intruder list? Where is it? >Thanks for the info. (copied from some email I sent out personal, earlier today) Lesse....intruder lists. I call them censuses, but they really are not, they are more like indexes, that tell you where you can go to find the complaint on an intruder. A little bit of Oklahoma History is neccesary I suppose to really explain it, and my explanation is a simplistic one, so forgive me. Indian territory was made up of Individual Indian Nations. This meant that each one of these Indian Nations had their own government, etc. Now, "intruders" were basically like "illegal aliens". White people on Indian land, or in the Indian Nations without the permission of the tribe. Since there is not really a census in Oklahoma per se before 1900 (there are some, like the 1890 partial, the 1860 as part of Arkansas Territory and tax stuff) The intruder lists are another source for finding white people in Indian Territory before the openings of various Indian Lands in the Land runs. Intruders were different from "Boomers" and "Sooners". Boomers were a group of people who were in favor of opening the Unassigned lands to ownership. These people abided by certain "homestead laws" and were legally within the unassigned lands before the land runs. "Sooners" were those people illegally in the unassigned/indian lands just prior to opening, (like the day before). They usually snuck in at night and staked a claim before the actual gun was fired to start the run. so there you have it. probably confused you more than cleared it up. Nalora