The Muscogee Nation first filed a lawsuit against the Poarch Band of Creek Indians over their handling of sacred land in 2012. They are now asking for the suit to be reinstated before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals after a judge dismissed it in 2021.
The area at the heart of the lawsuit is known as Oce Vpofv or Hickory Ground Tribal Town located in Alabama. It contains human remains and funerary objects belonging to the Muscogee Nation and was once their last tribal capital.
Muscogee Nation citizens were forcibly relocated to present-day Northeast Oklahoma between 1827 and 1838.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians is a group of Muscogee descendants who remained in Alabama within a separate settlement, and acquired Oce Vpofv in 1980 with a 20-year-long protective covenant.
When the covenant expired in 2000, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and archaeologists with Auburn University removed 57 sets of human remains and thousands of funerary and cultural objects in order to build a casino and resort in the area.
Muscogee officials say the Poarch Band did not notify them until after the excavation, and the removed objects and remains were being stored in a manner that caused damage to the items. Additionally, many remains and items were not excavated and are believed to have been destroyed during construction.
In 2006, the Muscogee Nation engaged in discussions with the Poarch Band of Indians to halt further excavations, return the cultural items and rebury the remains.
Muscogee Nation officials say their efforts failed, and in 2012 the Poarch moved forward with construction and reburied the items and remains in a separate location.
Muscogee spokesman Jason Salsman said the lawsuit is about justice for their ancestors.
“Fifty-seven graves were dug up. And for what? A casino,” he said. “When we went out to see it during construction, some people were physically sick at the destroyed site — all for a casino. That's our ‘why’ for fighting this.”
The Muscogee Nation claims the Poarch are looking for monetary gain and have never lived in the area. The Poarch disagree, saying they have a historical and ancestral connection to the land.
In an interview with the Montgomery Advertiser in 2012, Robert McGhee, who was then a member of the Poarch Band tribal council, told the newspaper that the Poarch Band, “value[s] our heritage and respect our ancestors.”
“We have taken great care to honor history and preserve the past while ensuring the future for our tribe,” he wrote in a response e-mailed to the paper at the time. “It is unfortunate that neither the issue nor our response to it was portrayed accurately, but we understand that these centuries-old wounds are deep and the hurt that resulted from tribes being forcibly removed from the Southeast still remains.”
Oral arguments are set to be heard Wednesday morning.
