Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

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

5 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Tribes failed to hold the communal lands for the “equal ben-
efit” of all members.  Woodward v. De Graffenried, 238 U. S. 
284, 297 (1915).  Instead, a few “enterprising citizens” of the 
Tribes “appropriate[d] to their exclusive use almost the en-
tire property of the Territory that could be rendered profit-
able.”  Id., at 297, 299, n. 1 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  As a result, “the poorer class of Indians [were] unable 
to  secure  enough  lands  for  houses  and  farms,”  and  “the 
great body of the tribe derive[d] no more benefit from their 
title than the neighbors in Kansas, Arkansas, or Missouri.” 
Id., at 299–301, n. 1 (emphasis deleted; internal quotation
marks omitted). 

Attuned to these new realities, Congress decided that it
could not maintain an Indian Territory predicated on “ex-
clusion of the Indians from the whites.”  S. Rep. No. 377, at 
6.  Congress  therefore  set  about  transforming  the  Indian
Territory into a State.

Congress began by establishing a uniform body of law ap-
plicable to all occupants of the territory, regardless of race. 
To apply these laws, Congress established the U. S. Courts
for the Indian Territory.  Next Congress systematically dis-
mantled the tribal governments.  It abolished tribal courts, 
hollowed  out  tribal  lawmaking  power,  and  stripped  tribal 
taxing authority.  Congress also eliminated the foundation
of tribal sovereignty, extinguishing the Creek Nation’s title 
to  the  lands.  Finally,  Congress  made  the  tribe  members 
citizens of the United States and incorporated them in the 
drafting  and  ratification  of  the  constitution  for  their  new 
State, Oklahoma. 

In taking these transformative steps, Congress made no 
secret of its intentions.  It created a commission tasked with 
extinguishing the Five Tribes’ territory and, in one report 
after another, explained that it was creating a homogenous
population led by a common government.  That contempo-
raneous understanding was shared by the tribal leadership