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Home to a Changing World

Back home, the Vanderbilt men began careers in law, farming, business, and the ministry. Many served in Cherokee and Chickasaw government, representing their nations through the Allotment Era, when Congress sold off reservation lands and sought to destroy indigenous sovereignty. They worked in tribal courts and legislatures until the federal government dissolved them. After 1906, they served as local, state, and federal officials in the new state of Oklahoma. Several lived to see the resurgence of tribal self-government in the 1930s and 1940s.