Booming for free land

In the later part of the 19th Century, a conflict arose at the southern Kansas border that had not been seen in any other part of the west. The seed of the dispute germinated through a land grab movement by settlers who coveted the fertile Cherokee land south of Kansas. They were especially irked by a grazing lease arrangement cattlemen had negotiated with the Cherokee Nation As early as 1878, cattlemen maintained lease arrangements with the established sovereign government of the Cherokee Nation, whereby large tracts of the reservation were grazed at a per head rate.