Ted Cruz is angry. “Manhattan is coming next,” wrote the Texas Republican Senator on Twitter a few days ago. The Supreme Court has just “given up half Oklahoma”. With a majority of five to four, the judges confirmed that most of eastern Oklahoma was a Native American reservation that Congress had contractually guaranteed to Muscogee in the 1830s.
The decision came in a week of important judgments by the Supreme Court, among other things about Donald Trump’s finances. As a result, she received less attention. But for many, it is a victory for indigenous people across the country, whose nations are struggling to maintain full sovereignty. The decision was monumental and of immense importance for the indigenous peoples of North America, said Joy Harjo. She is a member of the Muscogee Nation (also known as Creek) and is currently the holder of the title “Honorary Poet of the United States”.
For the Muscogee Nation and four other tribes, the verdict signifies late historical justice. Between 1830 and 1850 they were forced to settle in what is now Oklahoma. The land that is at stake today was promised to them as a reserve. Like the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Semiole, and Cherokee, the United States government drove them from their home in the southeastern United States to the west. According to the “Indian Removal Act of 1830, up to 100,000 indigenous people were sent on the” Trail of Tears “, the” path of tears “.
Own courts and police units
Oklahoma still has 86,100 registered citizens of the Muscogee Nation. In Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida, nearly 125,000 indigenous people still lived on millions of hectares of land that had been inherited over many generations at the beginning of the decade.
The white settlers wanted the land for themselves to cultivate with the help of enslaved black cotton. Gold had also been found in Georgia in 1828. Many states passed laws that aboriginal people no longer had land rights. The Supreme Court contradicted that in 1832. But President Andrew Jackson overruled it and said that as long as no one was willing to implement the judgment, it was stillborn. The judges could try to enforce their decision, Jackson said.
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The local police and militias forced the displaced to march on foot and partly in chains to the new reserves in the west. Many people died of hunger and disease along the way – estimates suggest that at least 3,500 Muscogee and thousands of other indigenous people did not survive the marches. In Oklahoma, the survivors founded the settlement of Tulsa, now the second largest city in the state. It also falls within the area that the Supreme Court has now confirmed as the country of the Muscogee. They established their own judicial system, which the state of Oklahoma continued to disregard after it was established. According to the judges, Oklahoma has had unlawful criminal authority over indigenous people for decades.
The case ended up in the Supreme Court after a convicted sex offender sued through the courts. Jimcy McGirt, who raped a four-year-old child and was therefore imprisoned for his life, argued that the state court had no jurisdiction. After all, he belongs to the Semiole tribe and the deed was committed on the territory of the Muscogee. Other prisoners made similar requests.
In reserves, only the federal government and the authorities of the respective native nation have criminal authority, but not the respective state. There are 567 recognized Native American groups and 326 reserves in the United States. Of the 2.5 million indigenous Americans, around one million lived in these separate administrative districts in 2012. There are separate courts and police units there. They already exist in Oklahoma and they don’t need to be rebuilt. The largest indigenous nation is the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
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