Thread on the #SupremeCourt #Oklahoma #CreekNation McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling today, because prior posts were made on my phone at work and therefore lacking.

This also provides a bit of Oklahoma history, by necessity.

To begin with: this is Oklahoma.

Once upon a time, Andrew Jackson and other Presidents forced the removal of Native Americans into what was once called Indian Territory.

The territory was split roughly among the first several tribes to be removed here, with more being packed in later as the US moved West.

Eventually, a man named Standing Bear tipped a line of dominoes that resulted in the more specific and defined apportionment of land in this territory.

And gosh, wouldn't you know it, some lands just ended up "Unassigned." So mostly-white people flooded into them and spread out.

In time, the flood became Oklahoma Territory (left), jigsawed neighbor to the remainder of Indian Territory (right).

There were plans for each territory to become a state, but they didn't pan out, and in 1907 they fused into Oklahoma.

(Our very first state law was segregation.)

Now.

As of yesterday, the majority of old Indian Territory was a collection of "nations" within Oklahoma. Both part and not part of the state.

The Supreme Court ruled that, due to certain oversights in the past, the Muscogee/Creek Nation still had territorial rights...

... Meaning that state law does not supersede tribal law when dealing with tribal members anymore. Only federal law does.

The Muscogee would also have jurisdiction over environmental laws with regards to the use of that land.

Which is important, because:

It also means, as will be argued, that they own the land and therefore own the oil and gas resources to be found there.

And could levy taxes on people who live on it.

Such as the majority of the city of Tulsa, one-time "Oil Capitol of the World."

This is Tulsa County.

Comparing to the previous image, the brown area, most of the green, and part of the purple fall inside the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

This is the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, where about one million of Oklahoma's four million people live. The Supreme Court ruling affects the whole southern half.

The hyperbolic statements of "half" the state of Oklahoma being declared a reservation are therefore not true.

Yet.

Because remember that the Muscogee weren't alone in having sovereign land over which the state of Oklahoma was superimposed.

This case sets a precedent.

If Muscogee has that much control over its land now, why not all the rest in former Indian Territory?

Why not?

That's the question that -- yes -- half the land of the state is now asking itself.

What will the answer be?

I can't wait to find out.

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