Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 12

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

freely  alienable,  white  settlers  would  have  more  space  of 
their own.  See id., at 14–15; cf. General Allotment Act of 
1887, §5, 24 Stat. 389–390. 

The Creek were hardly exempt from the pressures of the
allotment era.  In 1893, Congress charged the Dawes Com-
mission with negotiating changes to the Creek Reservation. 
Congress identified two goals:  Either persuade the Creek 
to cede territory to the United States, as it had before, or
agree  to  allot  its  lands  to  Tribe  members.  Act  of  Mar.  3, 
1893, ch. 209, §16, 27 Stat. 645–646.  A year later, the Com-
mission reported back that the Tribe “would not, under any 
circumstances, agree to cede any portion of their lands.”  S. 
Misc.  Doc.  No.  24,  53d  Cong.,  3d  Sess.,  7  (1894).    At  that 
time,  before  this  Court’s  decision  in  Lone  Wolf,  Congress
may not have been entirely sure of its power to terminate 
an  established  reservation  unilaterally.    Perhaps  for  that
reason, perhaps for others, the Commission and Congress
took this report seriously and turned their attention to al-
lotment rather than cession.2 

The  Commission’s  work  culminated  in  an  allotment 
agreement with the Tribe in 1901.  Creek Allotment Agree-
ment, ch. 676, 31 Stat. 861.  With exceptions for certain pre-
existing  town  sites  and  other  special  matters,  the  Agree-
ment established procedures for allotting 160-acre parcels
to individual Tribe members who could not sell, transfer, or 
otherwise encumber their allotments for a number of years.
§§3, 7, id., at 862–864 (5 years for any portion, 21 years for 
the designated “homestead” portion).  Tribe members were 
given deeds for their parcels that “convey[ed] to [them] all 
right, title, and interest of the Creek Nation.”  §23, id., at 

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2 The  dissent  stresses,  repeatedly,  that  the  Dawes  Commission  was 
charged with seeking to extinguish the reservation.  Post, at 18, 24.  Yet, 
the dissent fails to mention the Commission’s various reports acknowl-
edging that those efforts were unsuccessful precisely because the Creek
refused to cede their lands.