The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Choctaw and the Chickasaw nations October 5 signed a million settlement in a longstanding land trust dispute between the federal government and the tribes.
“This settlement represents a significant milestone in helping solidify and improve our relationship with the United States,” declared Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby during the signing ceremony.
He credited Interior Secretary Sally Jewell with making the agreement happen. “We are confident she will play an essential role in our efforts to continue strengthening the relationship between our governments, because we believe she has a unique appreciation for the mutual benefits of a positive government-to-government relationship,” he said.
Jewell greeted the crowd, some of them wearing traditional garb with the Choctaw greeting “Halito!” She told the crowd: “Today’s agreement is the latest addition to a record number of longstanding settlements resolved under this Administration,” Jewell said in a DOI statement after the signing. “This historic settlement is the start of a new chapter in our trust relationships with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, and underscores our commitment to fulfilling those responsibilities to Native communities across the country.”
Also signing the settlement was Choctaw Chief Gary Batton, which will be paid $46.5 million from the $86 million settlement, which marked the end to the litigation.
Batton said that the agreement, “marks the start of a revitalized relationship with the United States.” Batton emphasized the “sovereign-to-sovereign relationship” between his tribe and the U.S.
The dispute went back more than a century to when Oklahoma was poised to be admitted to the union as a state. At that time the federal government seized more than one million acres of tribal land.
In 2005 the tribes took the U.S. to court to try to get some payment for the land.
