For Oklahoma Tribe, Vindication at Long Last

Much of that Nation’s history and even its name, bear the imprint of America’s colonial legacy.

“Muscogee” is the name of their language and the name of the confederacy of tribes that once sprawled across much of Alabama, Georgia and northern Florida in a system of interlocking tribal towns with their own land and political structures. “Creek” was the name used by white settlers because they lived near water.

The Nation is one of the Five Tribes, along with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole, who were forced to leave their homelands in the 1830s by President Andrew Jackson and set off on a series of devastating treks west that killed thousands.

Today, the other members of the Five Tribes have similar arguments for federal recognition of their treaty lands in Oklahoma.

“You don’t know all of American history without knowing our history,” said Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Creek activist who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

The history of treaties between tribes and the United States is rife with coercion and broken promises, and activists said the court’s decision was remarkable for doing something seemingly simple: Holding the United States to the promises it had made to tribal nations.

The court’s decision brought a mix of acceptance and confusion from non-Natives across Oklahoma. The mayor of Tulsa hailed a long history of cooperation between tribal and local governments, and said that the court’s “recognition of tribal boundaries will not even be noticeable” to most residents.

But Muscogee citizens said they were not surprised by more alarmist responses, including a tweet by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, saying that the court “just gave away half of Oklahoma, literally. Manhattan is next.”