Pawnee County, Oklahoma: History
The Osage Nation used the area that contains present-day Pawnee County as buffalo hunting grounds. In 1825, The Osage ceded parts of present-day Missouri, Arkansas, and most of the future state of Oklahoma to the US federal government.
After their forced removal from the Southeastern United States, Cherokee people received land in Eastern Oklahoma as well as the Cherokee Outlet in 1828, which included present-day Pawnee County. After the Civil War, the Cherokee agreed to allow other American Indians to settle in the eastern portion of the outlet. According to the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Pawnee Nation, the Pawnee people sold their Nebraska reservation in 1874 and used those funds to purchase land from the Cherokee Nation and the Muscogee Nation to establish a home in the Indian Territory.
From the Pawnee Nation Historic Preservation Office, the Pawnee people were forced to sign an agreement in 1891 to take land allotments from the reservation or have their lands taken from them by eminent domain. The remaining lands were opened to non-Indian settlers in 1893. Pawnee County was organized as County Q, and the future town of Pawnee, Townsite Number 13, was designated the county seat. In 1894, the voters chose the name Pawnee County over the name Platte County.
The female bandit, Little Britches, companion in crime with Cattle Annie, lived for a time at Sinnett, site of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Pawnee County.