Miami Land Claim, East Central Illinois, 2000-2001
In 2000, after almost ten years of failed negotiations with the state of Illinois, the Miami Nation of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit claiming 2.6 million acres of its land had been illegally sold to white settlers during the 19th century. The disputed territory contained two state universities, several state parks and prisons, and thousands of private farms and businesses. Although the tribe hoped to settle the lawsuit for a lesser amount of land in order to pursue an economic development project, the action outraged the white landowners symbolically named in the suit and galvanized state opposition to the tribe. The governor, attorney general, and member of Congress all attempted to intervene on behalf of the landowners and portrayed the lawsuit more as a ploy to build a casino than the pursuit of stolen property. Illinois politicians were uncomfortable with the prospect of a sovereign Indian nation existing within state borders and fearful of the precedent a successful land claim would set. Members of Illinois’s Congressional delegation introduced legislation that would have prevented tribes from suing individual landowners, and the state attorney general petitioned the court to dismiss the suit and set aside money to pay the landowner’s legal fees. Their panic was relatively short-lived, however, as the Miami abruptly dropped their lawsuit in 2001 and began negotiations with the mayor of Gary, Indiana about opening a casino and restoring sacred burial mounds as an outdoor museum. Although negotiations appear to be ongoing, no casino agreement has been reached at this time.