A deal for the City of Tulsa to send traffic and other municipal cases involving Muscogee Nation citizens to tribal court doesn’t cover the descendants of formerly enslaved people who are also tribal citizens.
Tulsa will still prosecute tribal citizens who can trace their lineage back to a Freedmen ancestor — people who were enslaved by the Five Tribes but freed and at one time granted citizenship within their respective tribal nations following the Civil War
A deal the Muscogee Nation and Tulsa reached in June covers all Native American citizens who commit crimes within the Muscogee Nation reservation. Under the terms of the deal, the city agreed to drop pending municipal charges against Native people and send their cases to tribal court. Moving forward, the city will send most cases involving most tribal citizens to the Muscogee Nation court system…