Cherokee National leadership has reached an agreement with the federal government regarding management of the tribe's resources.

 

Yesterday, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and Deputy Chief Bryan Warner announced that the tribe has reached an $80 million settlement with the U.S. federal government and proposed using the proceeds to build new judicial facilities.

 

The settlement resolves a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the United States mismanaged the tribe’s trust resources during the 20th century when federal policy suppressed the Cherokee Nation’s ability to self-govern.

 

Plans are underway to invest settlement funds in the construction of a justice center in Tahlequah that would house the tribe’s Supreme Court, district court, and attorney general’s office, as well as a future district courthouse elsewhere within the tribe’s 7,000 square-mile reservation. The remaining settlement funds would be set aside to construct a district courthouse at a location to be determined in the future.