Ted Cruz is mad. “Manhattan is next,” the Republican Senator from Texas wrote on Twitter a few days ago. The Supreme Court has just “given away half of Oklahoma.” With a majority of five to four, the judges had confirmed that most of eastern Oklahoma is a Native American reservation that Congress had contracted to the Muscogee in the 1830s.
The decision came in a week of major rulings by the Supreme Court, including Donald Trump’s finances. As a result, she received less attention. Yet for many, it is a victory for indigenous people across the country, whose nations are struggling to retain 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 (aka Creek) and currently holds the title of “United States Honorary Poet”.
For the Muscogee Nation and four other tribes, the ruling represents late historical justice. They were forcibly forced between 1830 and 1850 to settle in what is now Oklahoma, among other places. The land at issue today was promised to them as a reserve. Like the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and Cherokee, the American government drove them west from their hometowns in the southeastern United States. According to the “Indian Removal Act” of 1830, up to 100,000 indigenous people were sent on the “Trail of Tears”.
Own courts and police units
Oklahoma today has 86,100 registered citizens of the Muscogee Nation. In Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida, nearly 125,000 Indigenous people lived on millions of acres of land that had been inherited over many generations.
The white settlers wanted the land for themselves in order to grow cotton with the help of enslaved blacks. Gold was also found in Georgia in 1828. Many states passed laws that indigenous people no longer have land rights. The Supreme Court contradicted this in 1832. But President Andrew Jackson disregarded it and said that as long as no one was willing to implement the judgment, it was stillborn. The judges could try themselves to enforce their decision, said Jackson.
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A map of the Muscogee Nation shows 11 jurisdictions.
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Bild: Picture-Alliance
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The local police and militias forced the displaced to march on foot and, in some cases, in chains to the new reservations in the west. Many people died of starvation and disease along the way – it is estimated that at least 3,500 Muscogee and thousands more 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 into what the Supreme Court has now confirmed as the land of the Muscogee. They established their own judicial system, which the state of Oklahoma continued to disregard after its inception. According to the judges, Oklahoma exercised unlawful criminal authority over its indigenous people for decades.
The case went to the Supreme Court after a convicted sex offender filed a lawsuit. Jimcy McGirt, who raped a four-year-old child and is being jailed for his life, argued that the state court had no jurisdiction. After all, he belongs to the tribe of the Semiole and the act was committed on the territory of the Muscogee. Other inmates made similar requests.
In reservations, only the federal government and the authorities of the respective indigenous nation have criminal authority, but not the respective federal state. There are 567 recognized Native American groups and 326 reservations in the United States. Of the 2.5 million Indigenous Americans, about one million lived in these separate counties in 2012. There are separate courts and police units there. They already exist in Oklahoma and don’t need to be rebuilt. The largest indigenous nation is the Navajo Nation, which includes parts of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
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