"McGirt V. Oklahoma" On Native Rights
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2021
Published In
SCOTUS 2020
Abstract
What started as a dispute over jurisdiction in a murder prosecution has become an influential case about who controls the rightful government of Eastern Oklahoma. 40% of the state, including the city of Tulsa, comprises the historic reservations of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations. These tribes were forcibly removed from the eastern United States in the 1830s—including along the infamous Trail of Tears—and promised their new land in perpetuity. Since then, parts of that land have slowly been allotted, seized, or sold, so they are no longer part of the reservation. Or are they? According to the original treaties the petitioners are asking the Court to uphold, those lands are still under the government of the tribes. While this case is specifically about land in Oklahoma, it has broad ramifications for reservation land and Native rights throughout the United States.
Published By
Palgrave Macmillan
Editor(s)
M. Marietta
Recommended Citation
Carol Nackenoff and Natasha Markov-Riss , '20.
(2021).
""McGirt V. Oklahoma" On Native Rights".
SCOTUS 2020.
111-120.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-53851-4_10
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-poli-sci/720