“Sooners were white settlers who snuck in and staked claims “sooner” than the territory had been officially open.”
Sooners were ‘officials’ that could legally enter early and then staked claims before the opening.
Moonshiners were the ones that snuck in early.
Frontier land offices were hotbeds of corruption from the earliest days of this country. I’ve got an ancestor who made a killing when TN was created from the then-western reaches of North Carolina.