The Oklahoma Bar Journal May 2023

The federal building in Muskogee housed the U.S. district court offices, the post office and the headquarters of the Five Civilized Tribes. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

of Oklahoma – the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations – were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory from the southeastern United States. 8 Treaties executed between the federal government and the tribes promised them lands in the Indian Territory for use as a permanent homeland. 9 After the Civil War, each of the Five Tribes executed a treaty with the United States that reduced their territories but preserved res ervations for them. 10 The federal government used the western part of Indian Territory ceded by

the Five Tribes for the relocation of other Indian tribes, primarily those indigenous to parts of the western United States. In 1890, these lands were organized as the Oklahoma Territory. 11 There was an important dif ference in the land tenure of the reservations of the Five Tribes in the Indian Territory and those in the Oklahoma Territory. Pursuant to their treaties, the Five Tribes received a fee patent to their lands. 12 This meant the tribes themselves were the legal title owners of their reservation lands subject only to a restriction on

and the reinvigoration of tribes in Oklahoma during the self- determination era in the 1960s and 1970s. It demonstrates how these changes in federal policy prompted federal and Oklahoma state courts in the 1980s and 1990s to repudiate the earlier decisions denying the existence of Indian country in eastern Oklahoma. THE INDIAN TERRITORY AND THE ROAD TO OKLAHOMA STATEHOOD Before statehood, Oklahoma was part of the Indian Territory. In the 1830s, the Five Tribes

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL