Acknowledging Indigenous Injustice: An Open Letter to Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols

On June 3, 2025, VNN | VNN Oklahoma President and CEO Kelly Tidwell (Muscogee and Cherokee) sent the following letter to Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols, requesting a meeting to discuss how the City plans to acknowledge and respond to the injustice it helped facilitate against Indigenous people during the Allotment and Assimilation Era (1898-1934).

June 3, 2025

Dear Mayor Nichols, 

The establishment of the $105 million reparations fund for the Tulsa Race Massacre is a monumental step toward justice. It's a recognition of the unhealed wounds inflicted upon the Black community in Tulsa. We congratulate you on setting a precedent for what is possible when political will aligns with moral righteousness. 

As we celebrate this progress, we must also turn our attention to the Indigenous families who suffered similar fates. The corrupt sales, fraudulent guardianships, fatal abuse and neglect, and theft of mineral-rich lands from Native families in Tulsa have long been overlooked. It's time to acknowledge these injustices and work toward reparations for all affected communities.

During the Allotment and Assimilation Era in Tulsa (1887-1934), most full-blood and restricted American Indians had their land and natural resources taken from them due to forced sales, fraud, or manipulation by guardians, lawyers, and county judges.

According to the record “Our National Problem: The Sad Condition of the Oklahoma Indians”

By Warren K. Moorehead, Member of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, published in 1913, “An estimated 7 out of 8 allottees had their allotted land taken from them through the corrupt guardian and probate system” (likely tens of thousands from the Five Treaty Tribes). 

This corruption included judicial negligence in Tulsa County, where over 300 guardians were cited as having never filed complete or any reports for the Indigenous wards whose lands and resources they were controlling. 

In “A National Blunder”, published in 1925, M. L. Mott, National Attorney for the Creek Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma from 1904-1914, calling upon his earlier report from 1912, emphasized judges and court officials failed to enforce accountability, resulting in large-scale losses of money and property. Land in and around Tulsa was among the most valuable due to oil speculation, and Indigenous children were forced—through guardian and court coercion—into sales that robbed them and their families of generational wealth.

The Indian Rights Association’s investigative report “Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians”, published in 1924, sounded the alarm on theft of Indigenous land and resources in and around Tulsa, saying “The Indian is being robbed in Oklahoma on a scale and with a completeness of detail that is appalling… It is difficult to believe that such greed and cruelty still exist.” 

Their report cited Tulsa attorneys, businessmen, and politicians as central actors in fraudulent land dealings. Tulsa was referenced as a regional center for guardianship fraud, a legal jurisdiction that facilitated the exploitation of Indigenous minors, and a commercial hub where oil land leases and sales generated corruption. 

The total cumulative losses in Tulsa County from fraudulently sold land and stolen oil royalties likely amounted to multiple millions of dollars, consistent with the testimony of investigators and reformers of the era. In today’s money, that number would be in the billions. 

And that is not to mention the loss of life, from which the report references “Indian children have been allowed to die for lack of nourishment because of the heartlessness and indifference of their professional guardians, who had ample funds in their possession for the care of the wards.” 

IRA investigators estimated that of the 64,339 Native Americans in Oklahoma whose restrictions were removed in 1908, only between 5 or 10 percent had anything left at the time of their report. 

According to numbers from the US Census Bureau, from 1890 to 1940, Oklahoma’s white population and Black population increased by 1.9 million and roughly 147,000, respectively. Meanwhile, instead of increasing, the state’s Native American population decreased by about 1,300 during that time. The Native population’s greatest decreases were in the 1920s (-17,488) and the 1940s (-29,600).

Sadly today, Indigenous wealth inequity and health disparity persist in Tulsa but little has been done to rectify this continued injustice or acknowledge the history behind it. The silence around Indigenous loss must end. It is time for justice for Native American families in Tulsa — and for more non-Native allies to stand with Indigenous communities in accountability and repair.

At Verified News Network, we’ve taken deliberate steps to elevate these stories and foster solutions. Last year, we donated $18,600 to the Tulsa City-County Library so they could purchase the license to the digital IRA collection, unlocking hundreds of thousands of American Indian historical records so Tulsans can access them for free. This donation was revealed at our first Indigenous Roots American Indian History Symposium. 

Our local Native-owned newsroom VNN Oklahoma has published reporting on the connection between these historical injustices and present-day crises, including our Stealing Tvlse series, which launched in 2022, our Tulsa’s Indigenous Truth series, which launched in 2024, and most recently, our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG2T) Historical Reporting Project, which brought Indigenous journalists from all over the country to Tulsa to explore the connection between Tulsa’s allotment crime and the modern MMIWG2T crisis.

We are not only promoting truth—we are helping build the framework for reconciliation and repair.

We also want to acknowledge and support recent national efforts, such as the Department of the Interior’s Road to Healing tour—initiated here in Oklahoma to address the impacts of federal Indian boarding schools. President Biden’s public apology was a powerful start. Now that federal funding has been slashed for that program and many others, Tulsa could play a small part in bringing the acknowledgement of historic wrongdoing back for Oklahomans. 

Thus, we respectfully ask for a meeting to discuss how the City of Tulsa can recognize its own role in these historic harms and partner with Native-led organizations in advancing equity, visibility, and healing. Specifically, we are requesting a multi-point plan that outlines how Indigenous history will be acknowledged and addressed—through public education, civic engagement, historical preservation, and reparative initiatives.

We also look forward to the City of Tulsa joining us at our upcoming Indigenous Roots: American Indian History Symposium this October, which we believe would be an ideal stage to publicly unveil and commit to this plan.

Thank you for your time and leadership. We look forward to the chance to work together for a more inclusive Tulsa that values all its histories—and all of its people.

Sincerely,

Kelly Tidwell

(Muscogee and Cherokee)

President & CEO

Verified News Network (VNN)

VNN Oklahoma

The City of Tulsa replied to the letter on June 6, 2025, with the following response: 

"We wanted to let you now that we received your email and forwarded it to the Mayor’s Office. Thank you for your time and commitment; and I know the team will be in touch." 

VNN Oklahoma will publish that response when it is received.