Bishop appointed chief justice of the Seminole Indian Nation: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 p 6.

The Rt. Rev. William Wantland, (second from left) being sworn in as Chief Justice of the Seminole Nation

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Diocese of Fort Worth reports that its assisting bishop, the Rt Rev William Wantland, has been named the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Seminole Nation.

On 8 August, 2011, Bishop Wantland and two other justices took the oath of office for the American Indian tribal court which was formerly reinstated last year.

The Seminoles of Oklahoma are descendents of the Indian tribes expelled from Florida in the 1830s. The Seminole were recognized as an independent Indian Nation in 1856 by the US government after their resettlement West of the Mississippi.

In 1907 the US Congress removed all restrictions on white settlement in Indian Territory. During the reorganization Congress reduced the autonomy of the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Chikasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole (so-called due to their successful integration into American society and adoption of Western culture). Indian tribal courts were abolished and the chief of each tribe was henceforth appointed by the Federal Government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A member of the Tusekia Harjo Band of the Seminole Nation, Bishop Wantland trained as a lawyer and as an Episcopal priest, and was a member of the committee that drafted the tribe’s constitution of 1969, which restored its right to elect its own chief. “However, there was no provision for a court system,” under the new constitution the bishop said, “because the Bureau of Indian Affairs said we could not have courts.”

Bishop Wantland was appointed Attorney General of the Seminole nation in 1969 and served until 1977, while also serving as a priest in Oklahoma. Elected Bishop of the Diocese of Eau Claire in 1980, he led the Anglo-Catholic diocese in Wisconsin for 19 years and upon retirement served a year as Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Navajoland.

In 1993 Congress passed legislation supporting tribal courts. At first, the Seminole “utilized the Code of Federal Regulations Court of Indian Offences, a Federal Court authorised to handle limited kinds of cases, but not internal or tribal constitutional matters. I have served as the Magistrate of this CFR Court for the past five years,” the bishop said.

“In 2008, the Seminole Nation adopted an amendment to the Constitution providing for a tribal court system, with a District Court and a Supreme Court. We finally got Federal approval of our Amendment in 2010. We had been working on law codes and a structure for a court system for the past four years.”

The court system will formally take over all judicial operations on 1 October, 2011, the bishop said.