By TROY LITTLEDEER
@kituwahpunk
When the federal government withdrew a 56-page opinion recognizing the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma’s treaty-based interests in the Cherokee Reservation — reportedly in a single sentence, without addressing more than 400 citations — it didn’t erase the treaties. It removed the written acknowledgment of what those treaties mean. For UKB members waiting on land-into-trust decisions, gaming eligibility, and the economic future of their community, that distinction is the difference between a tribal government that can build something and one that spends another decade in federal court.
STILWELL, Okla. — Our brothers and sisters at the Cherokee One Feather asked a question worth sitting with: what could unify the Cherokee people?
Here’s a start.
Leaders who actually want to be unified. People who speak up for the people their decisions affect before they consider lining their own pockets. Less hypocritical speechmaking about defending sovereignty and standing for Indian Country — and more people who stand up for Indian people. All Indian people. Not just the ones on their rolls. Not just the ones in their jurisdiction. All of them.
Before we go further, let’s be clear about what M-37084 was. And what it wasn’t.
It wasn’t a treaty. It wasn’t an act of Congress. It wasn’t a court ruling. It wasn’t the source of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma’s rights to the Oklahoma Cherokee Reservation.
The treaties existed before M-37084. The historical record existed before M-37084. The Keetoowah people existed before M-37084.
What the opinion did was something different.
For 56 pages and more than 400 citations, the Department of the Interior examined that record and concluded that UKB possesses treaty-based interests in the Cherokee Reservation and remains a successor in interest alongside the Cherokee Nation. Federal agencies make decisions based on legal interpretations. Land-into-trust decisions. Jurisdictional decisions. Gaming eligibility decisions. Administrative decisions that determine whether a tribe can build an economic future or spend another decade in federal court.
M-37084 didn’t create UKB’s rights.
It recognized them.
And that recognition carried consequences.
So when Interior withdrew the opinion — according to UKB, in a single sentence, without addressing the 400-plus citations underlying the opinion it withdrew — the treaties didn’t disappear. The historical record didn’t disappear. UKB didn’t disappear.
What disappeared was the federal government’s written acknowledgment of what that record means.
The rights claim survives. The federal support for that claim does not.
That’s what was taken away.
A hostile reader will say: it’s just a memo. Nothing binding. No court has to follow it. And they’re right that M-opinions don’t bind federal courts. But federal agencies act on their own legal interpretations every single day. Interior’s interpretation of who holds treaty-based interests in the Oklahoma Cherokee Reservation determines whose land-into-trust applications move forward, whose gaming eligibility gets recognized, whose jurisdiction gets acknowledged in administrative proceedings. The memo was the mechanism. Withdrawing it doesn’t erase the rights. It removes the federal government’s willingness to act on them.
That’s the fight.
Not over a memo. Over whether the federal government will acknowledge what the treaties and the history mean for Keetoowah Cherokee people living in northeastern Oklahoma right now.
So let’s talk about who that fight belongs to.
It belongs to UKB members who watched their tribal government fight for years to put land into trust — land that could generate revenue, support services, and build the economic base their community needs. That trust application now faces renewed uncertainty. The gaming conclusions associated with M-37084 are now in question as UKB prepares for judicial review.
It belongs to Keetoowah Cherokee families who have watched their leaders stand up in council chambers and federal offices and courtrooms, year after year, saying the same thing: we are here, we have always been here, the treaties say so.
It belongs to every tribal citizen in Indian Country who watches federal administrations pick up and put down tribal rights depending on who’s in the building that week. One administration issues a 56-page opinion supported by more than 400 citations. The next withdraws it in a single sentence. According to UKB, the withdrawal was the final public action of the departing Solicitor. The people paying the price never had a seat at either table.
It belongs to the broader Cherokee world — all of it, Eastern Band included — because when one Cherokee government’s treaty claims lose federal recognition, the argument that tribal sovereignty is real, present, and enforceable takes a hit everywhere. Sovereignty isn’t a Cherokee Nation word. It isn’t a UKB word. It belongs to all of us or it belongs to none of us.
So back to One Feather’s question.
You want unity? Start there. Start with leaders who understand that standing for Indian Country means standing for Indian people — including the ones who don’t vote in your elections, including the ones whose interests complicate your political relationships, including the ones a single Interior memorandum just knocked back to square one.
UKB said Friday it will pursue judicial review. They said the historical and legal record underlying their treaty-based rights was not created by an M-Opinion and will not be erased by its withdrawal.
They’re right.
The record doesn’t change. The land doesn’t move. The treaties still say what they say.
The people who are supposed to stand with them — every Cherokee leader with a platform and a microphone and an audience that trusts them — have a choice to make.
Speeches or people.
Pick one.
