Muscogee (Creek) Nation

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a federally-recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Creek Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Official languages include Muscogee, Yuchi, Natchez, Alabama, and Koasati, with Muscogee retaining the largest number of speakers. They commonly refer to themselves as Este Mvskokvlke (pronounced [isti məskógəlgi]). Historically, they were often referred to by European Americans as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast.[3]

Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Flag
Seal of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Total population
80,591[1]
Regions with significant populations
 United States ( Oklahoma)
Languages
English, Muscogee [2]
Related ethnic groups
other Muscogee people, Alabama, Hitchiti, Koasati, Natchez Nation, Shawnee, Seminole, and Yuchi

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is the largest of the federally recognized Muscogee tribes. The Muskogean-speaking Alabama, Koasati, Hitchiti, and Natchez people are also enrolled in this nation. Algonquian-speaking Shawnee[4] and Yuchi (language isolate) are also enrolled in the Muscogee Creek Nation, although historically, the latter two groups were from different language families and cultures than the Muscogee.

Other federally recognized Muscogee groups include the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, and Thlopthlocco Tribal Town of Oklahoma; the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.

Jurisdiction
Muscogee (Creek) Nation Territory
Boundaries of the Five Tribes

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is headquartered in Okmulgee, Oklahoma and serves as the seat of tribal government. The Muscogee Nation's Reservation status was affirmed in 2020 by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Sharp v. Murphy, which held that the allotted Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation in Oklahoma has not been disestablished and therefore retains jurisdiction over tribal citizens in Creek, Hughes, Okfuskee, Okmulgee, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Rogers, Seminole, Tulsa, and Wagoner counties in Oklahoma.[5]

Government
Muscogee (Creek) Nation Mound building. Seat of government for both Legislative and Judicial branches of government

The government of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Okmulgee is the capital of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and also serves as the seat of government.[6]

Opothle Yahola: Muscogee (Creek) Chief circa 1800s

Executive branch

The Executive branch is led by a Principal Chief, Second Chief, Tribal Administrator, and Secretary of the Nation. The Principal Chief and Second Chief are democratically elected every four years. Citizens cast ballots for both the Principal Chief and Second Chief as they are elected individually. The Principal Chief then chooses staff; some of which must be confirmed by the legislative branch known as The National Council. The current members of the executive branch are as follows:

  • David W. Hill, Principal Chief
  • Del Beaver, Second Chief

Legislative branch

The legislative branch is the National Council and consists of sixteen members elected to represent the 8 different districts within the tribe's jurisdictional area. National Council representatives draft and sponsor the laws and resolutions of the Nation.[6] The eight districts include: Creek, Tulsa, Wagoner, Okfuskee, Muskogee, Okmulgee, McIntosh, and Tukvpvtce (Hughes).

Judicial branch

The Nation has two courts: the Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has final authority over disputes about the Muscogee Creek Constitution and Laws. The current members of the Supreme Court are as follows:

  • Chief Justice Kathleen Supernaw
  • Vice-Chief Justice Montie Deer
  • Associate Justice Jonodev Chaudhuri
  • Associate Justice Leah Harjo-Ware
  • Associate Justice Andrew Adams III
  • Associate Justice Richard Lerblance[6]

There is a separate Muscogee (Creek) Nation Bar Association (MCNBA).

Enrollment

In 2016, there were 80,591 people enrolled in the Muscogee Creek Nation. Of these, 60,403 lived within the state of Oklahoma.[7] Since 1979, membership to the tribe is based on documented lineal descent from persons listed as Creek 'Indians by Blood' on the Dawes Rolls.[8] The tribe does not have a minimum blood quantum requirement.

Services
Spc. Stacy R. Mull, an enrolled Creek from Okemah, makes frybread at a powwow at Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, 2004.

The Nation operates its own division of housing and issues vehicle license plates.[1] Their Division of Health contracts with Indian Health Services to maintain the Creek Nation Community Hospital and several community clinics, a vocational rehabilitation program, nutrition programs for children and the elderly, and programs dedicated to diabetes, tobacco prevention, and caregivers.[9]

The Muscogee Nation operates the Lighthorse Tribal Police Department, with 43 active employees.[10] The tribe has its own program for enforcing child support payments.

The Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative is sponsored by the nation. It educates and encourages tribal members to grow their own traditional foods for health, environmental sustainability, economic development, and sharing of knowledge and community between generations.[11]

The Muscogee Nation also operates a Communications Department that produces a bi-monthly newspaper, the Muscogee Nation News, and a weekly television show, the Native News Today.

Economic development

The tribe operates a budget in excess of $290 million, has over 4,000 employees, and provides services within their jurisdiction.[12]

The tribe has both gaming (casino related) and non-gaming businesses. Non-gaming business ventures include both Muscogee Nation Business Enterprise[13] (MNBE) and Onefire.[14] MNBE and Onefire oversee economic development as well as investigating, planning, organizing and operating business ventures projects for the tribe related to non-gaming business.[1] Gaming enterprises consist of 9 stand alone casinos; the largest being River Spirit Casino Resort featuring Margaritaville in Tulsa. The revenue from both gaming and non-gaming business are reinvested to develop new businesses, as well as support the welfare of the tribe.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation also operates two Travel Plaza truck stops.

Civic institutions
Further information: Creek National Capitol

The Nation's historic old Council House (also known as the Creek National Capitol) was built in 1878 and located in downtown Okmulgee. It is currently under renovation. It now serves as a museum of tribal history.[15][16]

Tribal college
College of the Muscogee Nation

In 2004, the Muscogee Nation founded a tribal college in Okmulgee, the College of the Muscogee Nation (CMN). CMN is a two-year institution, offering associate degrees in Tribal Services, Police Science, Gaming, and Native American Studies. It offers Mvskoke language classes as well. In 2007, 137 students enrolled, and the college has plans for expansion.[17]

History

The Nation includes the Creek people and descendants of their African-descended slaves[18] who were forced by the US government to relocate from their ancestral homes in the Southeast to Indian Territory in the 1830s, during the Trail of Tears. They signed another treaty with the federal government in 1856.[19]

During the American Civil War, the tribe split into two factions, one allied with the Confederacy and the other, under Opothleyahola, allied with the Union.[20] There were conflicts between pro-Confederate and pro-Union forces in the Indian Territory during the war. The pro-Confederate forces pursued the loyalists who were leaving to take refuge in Kansas. They fought at the Battle of Round Mountain, Battle of Chusto-Talasah, and Battle of Chustenahlah, resulting in 2,000 deaths among the 9,000 loyalists who were leaving.[21]

Muscogee Creek beadwork

After defeating the Confederacy, the Union required new peace treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes, which had allied with that insurrection. The Treaty of 1866 required the Creek to abolish slavery within their territory and to grant tribal citizenship to those Creek Freedmen who chose to stay in the territory; this citizenship was to include voting rights and shares of annuities and land allotments.[22] If the Creek Freedmen moved out to United States territory, they would be granted United States citizenship, as were other emancipated African Americans.[23]

The Creek established a new government in 1866 and selected a new capital of Okmulgee. In 1867 they ratified a new constitution to incorporate elements of the new peace treaty, and their own desire for changes.[3]

They built their capitol building in 1867 and enlarged it in 1878. Today the Creek National Capitol is a National Historic Landmark. It now houses the Creek Council House Museum, as more space was needed for the government. During the prosperous final decades of the 19th century, when the tribe had autonomy and minimal interference from the federal government, the Nation built schools, churches, and public houses.[3]

At the turn of the century, Congress passed the 1898 Curtis Act, which dismantled tribal governments in another federal government attempt to assimilate the Native American people. The related Dawes Allotment Act required the break-up of communal tribal landholdings to allot land to individual households. This was intended to encourage adoption of the European-American style of subsistence farming and property ownership. It also was a means to extinguish Native American land claims and prepare for admitting Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory as a state, which took place in 1907.

The government declared that communal land remaining after allotments to existing households was "surplus". It was classified as excess and made available for sale to non-Natives. This resulted in the Creek and other tribes losing control over much of their former lands.

In the hasty process of registration, the Dawes Commission registered tribal members in three categories: they distinguished among "Creek by Blood" and "Creek Freedmen," a category where they listed anyone with visible African ancestry, regardless of their proportion of Creek ancestry; and "Intermarried Whites." The process was so confused that some members of the same families of Freedmen were classified into different groups. The 1906 Five Civilized Tribes Act (April 26, 1906) was passed by the US Congress in anticipation of approving statehood for Oklahoma in 1907. During this time, the Creek had lost more than 2 million acres (8,100 km2) to non-Native settlers and the US government.

Later, when Creek communities organized and set up governments under the 1936 Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act, some former Muscogee tribal towns reorganized that were in former Indian Territory and the Southeast. Some descendants had remained there and preserved cultural continuity. Ohers reorganized and gained recognition later in the 20th century. The following Muscogee groups have gained federal recognition as tribes: the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, and Thlopthlocco Tribal Town of Oklahoma; the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, and the Poarch Band of Creeks in Alabama.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation did not reorganize its government and regain federal recognition until 1970. This was an era of increasing Native American activism across the country. In 1979 the tribe ratified a new constitution that replaced the 1866 constitution.[3] The pivotal 1976 court case Harjo v. Kleppe helped end US federal paternalism. It ushered in an era of growing self-determination. Using the Dawes Rolls as a basis for determining membership of descendants, the Nation has enrolled more than 58,000 members, descendants of the allottees.

Creek Freedmen controversy

From 1981 to 2001, the Creek had membership rules that allowed applicants to use a variety of documentary sources to establish qualifications for membership.

In 1979 the Muscogee Nation Constitutional Convention voted to limit citizenship in the Nation to persons who could prove descent by blood, meaning that members had to be able to document direct descent from an ancestor listed on the Dawes Commission roll in the category of "Creek by Blood". Persons proving they are descended from persons listed as Creek by blood can become citizens of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The 1893 registry was established to identify citizens of the nation at the time of allotment of communal lands and dissolution of the reservation system and tribal government.[24]

The 1979 vote on citizenship excluded descendants of persons recorded only as Creek Freedmen in the Dawes Rolls. This decision has been challenged in court by those descendants, according to the 1866 treaty[25] of "Creek Freedmen."[26][27]

The Freedmen were listed on the Dawes Rolls. Some descendants can prove by documentation in other registers that they had ancestors with Creek blood. The Freedmen had been listed on a separate register, regardless of their proportion of Creek ancestry. This classification did not acknowledge the unions and intermarriage that had taken place for years between the ethnic groups. Prior to the change in code, Creek Freedmen could use existing registers and the preponderance of evidence to establish qualification for citizenship, and were to be aided by the Citizenship Board. The Creek Freedmen have challenged their exclusion from citizenship in legal actions[28][29] which are pending.[30]

Notable Muscogee Nation people
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See also

Notes
  1. Muscogee (Creek) Nation Citizenship Office. Retrieved 8 Mar 2017. (archived)
  2. "Creek (Mvskoke)", Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed Dec. 22, 2009
  3. Theodore Isham and Blue Clark. "Creek (Mvskoke)", Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed Dec. 22, 2009
  4. Innes, 393
  5. Higgins, Tucker; Mangan, Dan (July 9, 2020). "Supreme Court says eastern half of Oklahoma is Native American land". CNBC. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  6. "MCN Governmental Branches." Muscogee (Creek) Nation. 2008 (retrieved 22 Dec 2009)
  7. "Citizenship Facts and Stats – Muscogee (Creek) Nation". www.mcn-nsn.gov. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  8. "Muscogee Nation"
  9. "Division of Health", Muscogee (Creek) Nation. (retrieved 28 Dec 2009)
  10. "Lighthorse Tribal Police." Muscogee (Creek) Nation. (retrieved 28 Dec 2009)
  11. "About MFSI." Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative. (retrieved 28 Dec 2009)
  12. "Quick Facts" (PDF). Mvskoke Tourism & Recreation. March 8, 2017.
  13. "MNBE". MNBE. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  14. "Onefire Holdings | Tulsa, Oklahoma". onefireholding.com. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  15. "Creek Council House Museum." Attractions in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. (retrieved 22 Dec 2009)
  16. Clifton Adcock, "Creeks ask to buy Council House: The U.S. sold it out from under them to the city of Okmulgee in 1919. It's now a museum.", Tulsa World, March 18, 2010.
  17. College of the Muscogee Nation Frequently Asked Questions. (retrieved 22 Dec 2009)
  18. Congressional Edition - United States. Congress - 1888 Exhibit E. State of Indian Territory, County of Creek Nation : Before me, ... Sarah Davis (her x mark).
  19. "The Fourteenth Creek Treaty", concluded at Washington, D. C., on the 7th of August, 1856, was one of the most important in the history of the Creek. The names of the Creek delegates who signed it: Tuckabatchee Minco, Echo Harjo, Chilly McIntosh and Daniel N. McIntosh (sons of chief William McIntosh, who was executed in 1825 for signing the Treaty of Indian Springs), Benjamin Marshall, and George W. Stidham. These names continue to be prominent in the Creek Nation. Their descendants are among the leaders of the present generation of Creek. This treaty is an attempted summary of all former treaties, canceling many old provisions that seemed to have outlived their usefulness and adjusting many disputes which had arisen during the preceding decade. Chronicles of Oklahoma
  20. Morton, Ohland (March 1931). "Early History of the Creek Indians". Oklahoma Historical Society. Chronicles of Oklahoma. p. 25. Archived from the original on January 21, 2016. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  21. Creek Indians in the American Civil War
  22. 1870 Loyal Creek abstract - Creek Treaty - Article IV provides how the losses of the loyal Creeks are to be ascertained ... and a roll of the names of all soldiers that enlisted in the Federal army, loyal refugee Indians ...
  23. Note: Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and American Indians: The Amendment was intended to give citizenship to African-American former slaves and not to Indians, who were considered to have independent sovereignty and citizenship within the territories of their reservations. Government agencies (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior), and the courts (state, federal, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court) consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on Indians. Under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution, Indian tribes were classified as "domestic dependent nations," and therefore, Indians were tribal citizens, not United States citizens.
  24. Sessional indexes to the Annals of Congress: Register of Debates in Congress ... By United States Historical Documents: 1914 Reference, Creek Nation: to Investigate relative to duplicate and fraudulent enrollments in (see Ы. J. Res. 3SS>. 329.b
  25. McKay v Cambell The negro and his descendants never had been considered a part of the free inhabitants ... McKay v. Campbell. 2 7 was another case in which an opinion was given on the clause in ... II. Status and Disabilities - INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND .Doe v. Avaline, 8 Ind., 6. The term "mestizo" signifies the issue of a negro and an Indian. Miller v. Dawson .... Osborn, 2 Fed., 58; 6 Sawy., 406; McKay v. Campbell, 16 Fed. Cas., No. 8840 ...
  26. United States Courts of Appeals reports: Cases adjudged ..Circuit Courts of Appeals, Samuel Appleton Blatchford - 1895 - Law reports, digests, etc Cases adjudged in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. v. ... J. P. Davison, one of Julia's children, was appointed administrator of her ... Caldwell, Circuit Judge, after stating the DAVISON v. GIBSON. 363.
  27. DAVISON V. WALKER.. of J. P. Davison, guardian of Sally McIntosh v. said Walker, involving the N. Q ...
  28. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE MUSCOGEE (CREEK) NATION. FILED. Ron Graham,. OKMULGEE DISTRICT. Plaintiff,. ) v. 1. ) Muscogee (Creek) Nation. ) Citizenship Board,. ) ) Defendant. ) and. Fred Johnson, ...
  29. Muscogee Creek Nation Official Tribal Website: Freedmen descendants want their own tribe
  30. MASON et al v. SALAZAR et al :: Justia Dockets & Filings Apr 27, 2012 – ... al v. SALAZAR et al - Justia Federal Dockets and Filings. ... KELVIN MASON, JAMES MASON, NATALEE MILLER and GRANT PERRYMAN ...

References
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