These routes are made for driving... the Natives to victory
THE US Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that about half of Oklahoma is legally owned by Native Americans. I haven’t read through the complete judgement yet, but even if you don’t know much about American history, you’d wonder — who else could own it?
Yet the court’s decision didn’t hinge on a quick look in the history books; rather, it focused on the official title deeds to a Creek reservation, and to the date when Oklahoma became a state. Suffice to say, the Native Americans won their case.
‘The Supreme Court today kept the United States’ sacred promise to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of a protected reservation,’ the tribe said in a statement.
A few years back I went on a trip to Oklahoma. I passed signs to Muscogee, as well as Witchita, Abilene, Amarillo, Tulsa. I was on Route 66, where the road signs read like any selfrespecting country singer’s gig list. Soon, you’ll see signs for Tahlequah. This is the other side of the frontier story. In contrast to the romantic portrayal of the cowboy, celebration of the Indian culture is less boisterous, covering as it does the near destruction of Native American culture.
In 1838 Native Americans were forcibly relocated from their traditional lands in Georgia to ‘Indian Territory’ in what would become the state of Oklahoma. As you might imagine, this was no blueprint for good community relations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BIA — an agency of the federal government — is even today routinely referred to by Native Americans as ‘the Bossing Injuns About department’. The Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah presents Native American culture with dignity. The imaginative exhibitions and reconstructions testify to the Native Americans superb eye for beauty, and also their subtle aptitude for ecology in this bountiful, but ultimately, tragic land. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath endowed Route 66 through Oklahoma with an almost malevolent vigour, draining money, energy and enthusiasm from the optimistic Okies heading west. But this area had known immense suffering before the Great Depression. The decimation of the Cherokees took place on this hard road westwards, their subjugation completed by journey’s end. No wonder the Cherokees and Creeks still call it the Trail of Tears.
It’s good they’re getting (some of) their land back.