People have lived in Oklahoma for over 30,000 YEARS!!! The first people to live in Oklahoma were Native Americans.The tribes were Apache, Caddo, Comanche and many other tribes. Spanish explorers traveled here a bunch looking for gold and coal. France and Spain controlled this area for 500 years.Then Napoleon bought it in the Louisiana purchase. So many Native Americans were forced to leave their homelands in the eastern United States and relocate in what’s now Oklahoma, which was then called Indian Territory. Today members of over 30 tribes still live in Oklahoma. Oklahoma became a state on November 16, 1907.