Choctaw leader Allen Wright first suggested the name for Oklahoma, meaning
"red people" in the Muskogean language.  Wright was a minister who went on
to become the principal chief of the Choctaw Indians in 1866.  After the
Removal Act, part of the land wh ich is now Oklahoma was designated Indian
Territory, comprising the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations, and later the
Chickasaw Nation in 1855.  Once the Civil War was over, the U.S.
government began to consider the idea of merging all the tribal
governments in the territory, at which point Wright suggested they rename
it Oklahoma.  The reorganization did not take place until 1890, in an act
which was passed by Congress.