Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 60

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

disestablish a reservation.  Hagen, 510 U. S., at 411.  There 
are good reasons the statutes here do not include the lan-
guage the Court looks for, and those reasons have nothing 
to do with a failure to disestablish the reservation.  Respect
for Congress’s work requires us to look at what it actually
did, not search in vain for what it might have done or did 
on other occasions. 

What  Congress  actually  did  here  was  enact  a  series  of 
statutes beginning in 1890 and culminating with Oklahoma 
statehood  that  (1)  established  a  uniform  legal  system  for 
Indians  and  non-Indians  alike;  (2)  dismantled  the  Creek 
government; (3) extinguished the Creek Nation’s title to the 
lands at issue; and (4) incorporated the Creek members into 
a new political community—the State of Oklahoma.  These 
statutes evince Congress’s intent to terminate the reserva-
tion and create a new State in its place.

First, Congress supplanted the Creek legal system with
a legal code and court system that applied equally to Indi-
ans and non-Indians.  In 1890, Congress subjected the In-
dian Territory to specified federal criminal laws.  Act of May 
2, 1890, §31, 26 Stat. 96.  For offenses not covered by federal 
law, Congress did what it often did when establishing a new 
territorial government.  It provided that the criminal laws 
from a neighboring State, here Arkansas, would apply.  §33, 
id., at 96–97.  Seven years later, Congress provided that the 
laws of the United States and Arkansas “shall apply to all 
persons” in Indian Territory, “irrespective of race.”  Act of 
June 7, 1897 (1897 Act), 30 Stat. 83 (emphasis added).  In 
the  same  Act,  Congress  conferred  on  the  U. S.  Courts  for 
the  Indian Territory  “exclusive  jurisdiction”  over  “all  civil 
causes in law and equity” and “all criminal causes” for the
punishment  of  offenses  committed  by  “any  person”  in  the 
Indian Territory.  Ibid. 

The  following  year,  the  1898  Curtis  Act  “abolished”  all 
tribal courts, prohibited all officers of such courts from ex-