A small but serious museum dedicated to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations — the five tribes the US government coerced into adopting European-style governments and farming, and then forcibly relocated to what is now eastern Oklahoma. The collection is strong on early-20th-century tribal art (paintings, beadwork, textiles) and rotating exhibitions feature contemporary Native artists. The handsome 1875 limestone building is itself an artefact. Allow 90 minutes.
Five Civilized Tribes Museum
A story
The 1875 stone building that houses the museum was the Union Indian Agency — the federal office that oversaw the affairs of the five tribes after their forced removal from the southeastern United States in the 1830s. The agency closed in 1936. The museum is one of the very few American museums founded and run by tribal authorities themselves, rather than under the auspices of the federal government.