McGhee v. Creek Nation

122 Ct. Cl. 380, 1952 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 106, 1952 WL 5944
United States Court of Claims·Decided May 6, 1952·No. Appeals Docket No. 14; Indian Claims Commission No. 21·Published·Cited by 11 cases

Opinion

LittxetoN, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal by C. W. McGhee, et ah, as members of and on the relation, of The Creek Nation East of the Mississippi, hereinafter sometimes referred to as the Creek [382] Nation East, from an order of the Indian Claims Commission denying appellants’ amended motion for leave to intervene as parties plaintiff in a suit now pending before the Commission and entitled The Creek Nation v. The United States (Indian Claims Commission Docket No. 21).

The proceeding in which appellants seek to intervene, was initiated on January 29, 1948, by The Creek Nation, a political body of Creek Indians inhabiting the Creek reservation in Oklahoma, to recover damages for the acquisition by the "United States of 23,267,600 acres of Creek lands in Alabama and Georgia, under the Treaty of August 9, 1814,1 such acquisition alleged to have been without compensation and contrary to the Government’s obligation under the Indian Claims Commission Act2 to deal fairly and honorably with the Indians. A trial of the issues on the merits of that claim by The Creek Nation was held, arguments heard, and the issues are now awaiting decision by the Commission. On January 5, 1951, The Creek Nation East3 moved for leave to intervene. The motion, as later amended, was denied by the Commission.

Appellants sought intervention on the ground that the injury which was the basis of the claims asserted by The Creek Nation in Indian Claims Commission Docket No. 21, was in fact an injury to the entire Creek Nation as it was constituted in 1814, and that the unorganized descendants of members of such nation who remained east of the Mississippi Diver are as much interested in the subject matter and outcome of the litigation as are the organized descendants of that nation living in Oklahoma; that the petitioner-appellee, The Creek Nation of Oklahoma, whose membership is restricted to Creeks (and their descendants) who were living in Oklahoma and whose names were placed on the Creek rolls in 1907, is neither identical with nor the full successor to The [383] Creek Nation as it existed in 1814, and that because appellee improperly claims to be such full successor and the exclusive owner of the claim in question, it thus denies rather than represents the rights of appellants.

The petitioner-appellee and the United States both opposed the intervention before the Commission. In denying the motion to intervene, the Commission held: (1) that appellants are not members of a “tribe, band or other identifiable group” within the meaning of the Indian Claims Commission Act and they do not have a common claim, but rather have a common suit for individual claims; (2) that petitioner-appellee has the exclusive right to prosecute the claim for the 1814 injury to The Creek Nation because of various acts of recognition of that tribe by the United States, notably by the Act of April 26,1906, 34 Stat. 131; and (3) that the jurisdiction of the Commission does not extend to defining the identity of the individuals or members of the groups who may be entitled to recover on any claim placed before it, and that allowing the motion to intervene would require the Commission to do just that.

The facts which were before the Commission for the purpose of passing upon intervenors’ motion show that the members of the original Creek Nation of Indians were the aboriginal inhabitants of a large area which included nearly all of Alabama and Georgia, and parts of Florida and Mississippi. On August 7, 1790, The Creek Nation entered into a treaty 4 of friendship with the United States whereunder it placed itself under the protection of the United States and ceded certain lands. The United States, in turn, guaranteed to The Creek Nation all of its remaining lands within certain boundaries defined in that treaty. During the War of 1812, some of the members of The Creek Nation joined the British, while the others remained loyal to the United States and fought against the rebellious Creeks. With the help of the United States, the uprising was put down. On August 9, 1814, a treaty5 was entered into between the United States and representatives of the “chiefs, deputies and warriors of The Creek Nation,” including both the loyal and rebellious [384] groups, whereby the Creeks ceded to the United States, without compensation, some 23,000,000 acres of their national domain.6

On January 24, 1826, the same Creek Nation concluded another treaty7 with the United States under which it ceded for a named consideration a portion of its lands located in Georgia east of the Chattahoochee River. This treaty also provided that a portion of the Nation who had indicated a desire to move to land west of the Mississippi River, should send, at the expense of the United States, a deputation of five persons to select a country in that area as a home for those Creeks wishing to move. Subsequently, an area of land was selected in what later became the State of Oklahoma, and a small number of Creeks migrated west. As a result of further negotiations looking toward the removal of more Creeks to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, the Government and the Creek Nation entered into the Treaty of March 24,18328 whereby all of the remaining Creek land lying east of the Mississippi River was ceded to the United States. This treaty provided for the patenting of land east of the Mississippi in fee simple to those Creeks wishing to remain there, and covenanted that the treaty should not be construed so as to compel any Creek Indian to emigrate — “but they shall be free to go or stay, as they please.”9

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McGhee v. Creek Nation, 122 Ct. Cl. 380, 1952 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 106, 1952 WL 5944 (cc 1952).

122 Ct. Cl. 380 (McGhee v. Creek Nation) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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