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Muscogee (Creek) Nation
The reservation at the center of McGirt v. Oklahoma
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation's reservation covers about 3 million acres of east-central Oklahoma, including most of the city of Tulsa. The Muscogee, or Mvskoke, were forced west from Alabama and Georgia in the 1830s, and since 1868 their capital has been Okmulgee, whose name comes from the Mvskoke for 'boiling waters.' The Nation has more than 100,000 citizens and a constitution adopted in 1979, with an elected principal chief and a national council.
In July 2020, in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Congress had never dissolved the Muscogee reservation, so for purposes of federal law it remains Indian country. The decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, reshaped criminal jurisdiction across eastern Oklahoma and led courts to affirm the reservations of the other Five Tribes. A 2022 ruling, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, later gave the state concurrent jurisdiction over crimes by non-Natives against Natives. The citizenship of Creek Freedmen descendants remains in litigation.