Muscogee Nation seeks to reinstate lawsuit against Alabama casino
The tribal nation has asked a federal appellate court to reinstate a suit against the Poarch Creek Band of Indians that wants Wind Creek Casino torn down.
US.- The Muscogee Creek Nation has asked a federal appellate court to reinstate its lawsuit against the Poarch Creek Band of Indians and Auburn University for improperly removing graves from a sacred site in Alabama to build a casino.
The Oklahoma-based tribal nation alleges that Wind Creek Casino and Resort in Wetumpka, Alabama, was built at Hickory Ground, a sacred site and capital when federal troops forced the Muscogee out of Alabama nearly 200 years ago. According to the lawsuit, originally filed in 2012, workers allegedly removed 57 sets of human remains and the artefacts buried with them, storing some in containers without proper ventilation or temperature control.
A federal judge threw out the suit in 2021, but the tribal nation has asked the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta to reinstate it. A letter sent last month to the Alabama-based Poarch Creek tribe by David Hill, the Muscogee Creek Nation’s principal chief, says the tribe failed to meet its obligation to its Muscogee ancestors.
“You made a promise to protect these lands and the Muscogee Creek Nation ancestors who remain there,” Hill wrote. “A promise that was broken when you removed our ancestors, stored them in boxes, and sent them off to a university to be studied by non-Indian archeologists. Some, still today, sit in a storage facility on site. You have yet to do right by them.”
The dispute between the Muscogee nation and Poarch Creek has been running for several years. The Alabama unearthed remains and artefacts when it built a bingo hall on the site in 2001. Archaeologists from Auburn University helped store and remove some of what was found, the complaint said.
A spokesperson from Auburn University said the university had no comment on the appeal, which contends it violated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires federally funded museums and universities to return ancestors and items buried with them to their descendants.
The appeal seeks to stop further development of the land that and to have the Wind Creek Casino torn down. It also seeks to have ancestral remains returned.
Hickory Ground was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The Poarch Creek Band acquired the land the same year, in part with federal preservation grant funds, according to the appeal. In 1999, Poarch Creek asked the National Park Service to delegate its preservation duties to the tribe and began planning to build a bingo hall that later expanded into the casino.
See also: Poarch Band of Creek Indians relaunches gambling campaign in Alabama
