Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

was separate from States, and which the dissent says was
preserved in relevant part by the 1866 Treaty.  See Treaty
with  the  Cherokee  (New  Echota),  Art.  5,  Dec.  29,  1835,  7 
Stat. 481; Treaty with the Cherokee, July 19, 1866, 14 Stat. 
709.  But history and legal development did not end in 1866.
Some  early  treaties  may  have  been  consistent  with  the 
Worcester-era theory of separateness.  But as relevant here, 
those treaties have been supplanted:  Specific to Oklahoma,
those treaties, in relevant part,  were formally supplanted
no later than the 1906 Act enabling Oklahoma’s statehood.
See Oklahoma Enabling Act, ch. 3335, 34 Stat. 267.  As this 
Court has previously concluded, “admission of a State into 
the Union” “necessarily repeals the provisions of any prior 
statute, or of any existing treaty” that is inconsistent with 
the State’s exercise of criminal jurisdiction “throughout the 
whole  of  the  territory  within  its  limits,”  including  Indian
country, unless the enabling act says otherwise “by express 
words.”  McBratney, 104 U. S., at 623−624; see Draper, 164 
U. S., at 242–246.  The Oklahoma Enabling Act contains no
such  express  exception.    Therefore,  at  least  since  Okla-
homa’s  statehood  in  the  early  1900s,  Indian  country  has
been part of the territory of Oklahoma. 

The dissent responds that the language of the 1906 stat-
ute enabling Oklahoma’s statehood itself established a ju-
risdictional division between the State and Indian country.
See post, at 20–22 (discussing the Oklahoma Enabling Act).
That argument is mistaken.  This Court long ago explained
that interpreting a statehood act to divest a State of juris-
diction over Indian country “wholly situated within [its] ge-
ographical boundaries” would undermine “the very nature 
of the equality conferred on the State by virtue of its admis-
sion into the Union.”  Draper, 164 U. S., at 242–243.  So the 
Court requires clear statutory language “to create an excep-
tion” to that “rule.”  Id., at 244.  To reiterate, the Oklahoma 
Enabling Act contains no such clear language.  Indeed, the 
Court has interpreted similar statutory language in other