The Muscogee Nation, sometimes called the Muscogee Creek Nation, may soon become the first Indigenous nation invited back to co-steward the land it once called home, before being forcibly removed nearly two centuries ago.
The Ocmulgee Mounds — the centerpiece of Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park — sit in the heart of Macon, Georgia. The land around them holds traces of more than 12,000 years of continuous human habitation.
The mounds have somewhat of a pyramid structure with flat tops, covered with an outer layer of earth that makes them look almost like hills, but with hollow interiors that were used for a number of purposes. They were built sometime after the year 900 by the Mississippian people, ancestors of the Muscogee.
Most recently, the mounds belonged to the Muscogee Nation, whose people lived across what is now Georgia and Alabama, along with smaller parts of Tennessee and Florida. But today, most Muscogee citizens live hundreds of miles away in Okmulgee, Oklahoma — the capital of their modern nation.
In the 1830s, the Muscogee were forced west under the Indian Removal Act, an event now remembered as one of the greatest injustices against Native Americans. Yet the story of the Muscogee and the mounds isn’t over. A homecoming may soon be in order.
The National Park Service (NPS) manages more than four hundred sites across the United States — everything from monuments and preserves to historical parks and national parks. Each designation carries a different level of protection, funding, and prestige.
Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park is now making its case for the most iconic titles from the NPS — National Park, the same designation given to icons like Yosemite and Yellowstone. It became a National Historical Park in 2019.
If approved, it would become the country’s 64th National Park and the first in the state of Georgia, statuses thought to help tourism and give it greater protections and funding. It would also be a milestone in environmental justice; the bill includes a provision naming the Muscogee Nation as co-managers of the land, which would reportedly make this the first U.S. National Park to invite the very same Native peoples once forcibly removed to return in an official role of authority at the founding of a National Park.
Some parks under the National Park Service have informal agreements with nearby Native tribes and have looked to bridge relationships in the last few decades by including them in conversations and consulting them on land management practices. Other parks like Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Big Cypress National Preserve and Grand Portage National Monument have formal co-management agreements with Native tribes, according to a 2023 report from the National Parks Conservation Association, but none hold that National Park status that the Ocmulgee Mounds is looking to obtain.
To make that happen, Congress must pass legislation approving the change. The bill — introduced earlier this year with broad bipartisan support from nearly all of Georgia’s congressional delegation — is now awaiting committee action. While its outcome is still uncertain, anticipation continues to build among local leaders, conservationists, and the Muscogee people themselves.
Click the play button atop this article to listen now. This audio story is supported by the Wake Forest University Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, descendants of the Mississippian people who built the Ocmulgee Mounds after 900 CE, may soon return as co-stewards of their ancestral land in Macon, Georgia.