Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 78.0

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

33 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

took  the  same  position  before  federal  courts.    Before  this 
litigation  started,  the  Creek  Nation  represented  to  the 
Tenth  Circuit  that  there  is  only  “ ‘checkerboard’  Indian 
country  within  its  former  reservation  boundaries.”    Reply
Brief in No. 09–5123, p. 5 (emphasis added).  And the Na-
tion  never  once  contended  in  this  Court  that  a  sprawling
reservation  still  existed  in  the  more  than  a  century  that
preceded the present disputes.

Like the Creek, this Court has repeatedly described the
area in question as the “former” lands of the Creek Nation. 
See Grayson v. Harris, 267 U. S. 352, 353 (1925) (lands “ly-
ing within the former Creek Nation”); Woodward, 238 U. S., 
at 285 (lands “formerly part of the domain of the Creek Na-
tion”);  Washington  v.  Miller,  235  U. S.  422,  423  (1914) 
(lands “within what until recently was the Creek Nation”).
Yet today the Court concludes that the lands have been a 
Creek  reservation  all  along—contrary  to  the  position
shared  for  the  past  century  by  this  Court,  the  United 
States, Oklahoma, and the Creek Nation itself. 

Under our precedent, Oklahoma’s unquestioned, century-
long exercise of jurisdiction supports the conclusion that no
reservation  persisted  past  statehood.    See  Yankton  Sioux 
Tribe, 522 U. S., at 357; Hagen, 510 U. S., at 421; Rosebud 
Sioux Tribe, 430 U. S., at 604–605.  “Since state jurisdiction
over the area within a reservation’s boundaries is quite lim-
ited, the fact that neither Congress nor the Department of
Indian Affairs has sought to exercise its authority over this
area,  or  to  challenge  the  State’s  exercise  of  authority  is  a 

—————— 
(Principal Cherokee Chief, 1982), “Oklahoma, . . . of course, is not a res-
ervation State” (Chickasaw Governor, 1988), “Oklahoma is not [a reser-
vation  State]”  and  “[w]e  have  no  surface  reservations  in  Oklahoma” 
(Chickasaw advisor, 2011), as well as references to the boundaries and 
lands of “former reservation[s]” (Chickasaw nominee for Assistant Sec-
retary of Indian Affairs, 2012; Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized
Tribes, 2016)).