During most of the past two centuries, the country’s failed federal Indian policy inflicted a great injustice on the Cherokee Nation. Here in the 21st century we fought back, prevailed, and are poised to fortify our own system of justice.
Since the country’s founding, the United States has asserted varying levels of control over Cherokee Nation’s resources. Over time, the United States became trustee of our nation’s natural resources and was responsible for managing them. The United States failed in this responsibility.
In the 1970s, our government was unshackled. Cherokee leaders began more closely examining the generations of neglect by the United States. Cherokee Nation began to scrutinize what was not there: an accounting of our resources, such as timber, coal and land leases.
In 2016, as Secretary of State, I witnessed the bold leadership of my predecessor, Principal Chief Bill John Baker. Chief Baker put it simply: If we believed the United States could not account for our natural resources in its role as trustee, it stood to reason that the United States likely squandered those resources. The only way to test this, he said, was to demand an accounting and, if the federal government failed or refused, to sue the United States.
Our legal action against the United States called upon the brilliant minds of our legal team and the leadership across Chief Baker’s administration, my administration and the Council of the Cherokee Nation. Attorneys General Todd Hembree, Sara Hill and Chad Harsha carefully built a case of historic proportions, supported by a team of lawyers, staff and researchers.
Chief Baker’s vision, and the work of our whole team, paid off. Last week, in the face our powerful case in Cherokee Nation v. United States Department of Interior, the United States of America bent and agreed to a historic $80 million settlement with Cherokee Nation. Although this settlement may resolve only one of the many injuries inflicted on the Cherokee Nation at the hands of the United States, it lays to rest an important one.
The settlement also further exposed the backwards thinking underlying federal Indian policy for much of the country’s history. The United States believed its system of government was so superior to that of the Cherokee Nation’s that it was simply in our best interest to place our resources in the hands of a federal guardian. Yet, this supposed “superior” federal government could not even manage to keep track of these resources.
Settlement in hand, we now face a question: How should we invest the $60 million in net settlement proceeds? This investment must be of enduring benefit to our nation.
Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and I have proposed that we invest the settlement into our own system of justice. The timing of the settlement and the present challenges we face compels it.
In the wake of the historic McGirt case reaffirming the Cherokee Nation Reservation, we have worked hard to seize new opportunities. Faced with the challenges of expanding our criminal justice system across all 7,000 square miles of our reservation, we have invested millions of dollars in our courts, our prosecutor’s office, our Marshal Service, and our victim protection programs.
With so much at stake for public safety and justice for all, we know more resources are needed. We need more space for our courts, and we need to expand access to our courts across the reservation.
Our current justice system office space largely consists of the second floor of our main tribal complex in Tahlequah. It was designed for a pre-McGirt era in which our system handled a small number of criminal cases per year. It was never designed for a daily flow of defendants, including those accused of violent crimes, to regularly enter the same building that houses programs for elders and children. The space is simply too small to meet our growing needs.
Deputy Chief Warner and I sent legislation to the Council to use the trust settlement to move our courts and AG staff out of inadequate and undersized space into a new “Cherokee Nation Justice Center” that can serve the Cherokee people for generations.
Our proposal locks down $50 million in settlement funds for the Justice Center in Tahlequah. Our plan also secures $10 million for a district court facility in an outlying area of the reservation, the first of several we will need in the coming years to make sure justice is in reach for all of our citizens.
I am proud that bold leadership has achieved justice for the Cherokee people and provided us an opportunity to invest in something that goes to the core of our sovereignty: a system of justice for the Cherokee people.
