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Page Number: 61

16 

MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

ercising “any authority” to perform “any act” previously au-
thorized by “any law,” and transferred “all civil and crimi-
nal causes then pending” to the U. S. Courts for the Indian 
Territory.  Act  of  June  27,  1898  (Curtis  Act),  §28,  id.,  at 
504–505.  In the same Act, Congress completed the shift to 
a uniform legal order by banning the enforcement of tribal 
law in the newly exclusive jurisdiction of the U. S. Courts. 
See §26, id., at 504 (“[T]he laws of the various tribes or na-
tions of Indians shall not be enforced at law or in equity by 
the courts  of the United States in the Indian Territory.”).
Congress  reiterated  yet  again  in  1904  that  Arkansas  law 
“continued” to “embrace all persons and estates” in the ter-
ritory—“whether  Indian,  freedmen,  or  otherwise.”    Act  of 
Apr. 28, 1904, ch. 1824, §2, 33 Stat. 573 (emphasis added).
In this way, Congress replaced tribal law with local law in 
matters at the core of tribal governance, such as inheritance 
and marital disputes.  See, e.g., George v. Robb, 4 Ind. T. 61, 
64  S. W.  615,  615–616  (1901);  Colbert  v.  Fulton,  74  Okla. 
293, 157 P. 1151, 1152 (1916). 

In addition, the Curtis Act established municipalities to
govern both Indians and non-Indians.  It authorized “any 
city or town” with at least 200 residents to incorporate.  §14,
30 Stat. 499.  The Act gave incorporated towns “all the pow-
ers” and “all the rights” of municipalities under Arkansas
law.  Ibid.  “All male inhabitants,” including Indians, were 
deemed qualified to vote in town elections.  Ibid.  And “all 
inhabitants”—“without regard to race”—were made subject
to  “all”  town  laws  and  were  declared  to  possess  “equal
rights, privileges, and protection.”  Id., at 499–500 (empha-
sis added).  These changes reorganized the approximately 
150 towns in the territory—including Tulsa, Muskogee, and 
23 others within the Creek Nation’s former territory—that
were  home  to  tens  of  thousands  of  people  and  nearly  one
third  of  the  territory’s  population  at  the  time,  laying  the
foundation for the state governance that was to come.  See 
H. R. Doc. No. 5, 57th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, pp. 299–300,