Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → United States → Creek Nation tribal tax, 1907

White Americans living in Muscogee (Creek) territory before Oklahoma became a state in 1907 resisted paying taxes to the Creek Nation government, hoping the federal government would back them up if push came to shove.

The Durant Weekly News reported:

Fight on the Tribal Tax

Commercial Club of Tulsa and Muakogee Raise Fund to Make Test.

People to Resist Removal

Writs of Injunction Against Indian Police to Be Asked For — It is Collectible on .

Tulsa, I.T., . — The Commercial Club of this city has raised a fund of $200 to go into a common fund raised over the Territory, which will be used in resisting the collection of the Creek Nation tribal tax, imposed by the Creek Nation Counoil, when the nation was under control of that body. The tax has not been collected for three years, pending a decision in the courts and since the decision was adverse to the white people, the first payment becomes due .

It has been practically decided not to pay the tax without resistance, and plans to escape the assessments have been made. Congress recently passed an act that provides no United States Court or official has authority to enforce a law passed by an Indian council. The punishment for refusing to pay the tax is removal from the nation, and the plan is to resist removal by asking writs of injunction against the Indian police, which will delay matters until such a time as a decision can be had from the Supreme Court of the United States, and later from the President, in case the court’s decision is adverse to the position the people [sic] have taken.

Muskogee, I.T., . — At a meeting of business men here last night a resolution was adopted pledging every man present to resist the payment of the Creek tribal tax. Over six hundred of the leading business men of the city were present, and not only did they declare against paying the tribal tax, but subscribed liberally to the fund being raised to defray the expenses of the case now pending in the United States Supreme Court. They are confident of winning this case and will send a committee of five with attorneys in the case to Washington to appeal to the Secretary to defer collection of the tax which under a ruling of the Secretary of the Interior, must be paid tomorrow under penalty of closing every man’s place of business who refuses. If Secretary Hitchcock refuses the committee will appeal to President Roosevelt.

There is no penalty for refusing to pay, as it has been decided that no one can be ejected from the Territory who refuse to comply with the ruling of the Secretary, and an act of Congress prohibits the judiciary from enforcing a tribal law. This is an absolute law of the Creek tribe which Indians have never sought to have enforced, and the business men of the entire Creek Nation have passed resolutions refusing to pay it.

The day after the taxes came due, the tribal government shut down businesses that refused to pay. Muskogee police, allied with the businesses, had the tribal police chief and his officers arrested, but the charges didn’t stick. The tax stayed on the books and continued to be enforced through , after which it was abolished (along with the independence of the tribal governments) in the “Five Civilized Tribes” Act of 1906 by the U.S. Congress.

One way to win a tax resistance campaign against a government that is stubbornly trying to squeeze money out of you is to appeal to an even bigger, badder government to take your side. Here are some examples of campaigns that have attempted this.

  • In in Bolivia, a Jehovah’s Witness named Alfredo Díaz Bustos was drafted into the military and claimed conscientious objector status. The authorities, recognizing no conscientious objector exemption, granted him an exemption certificate that classified him as unqualified for service, but demanded in exchange a special “military tax.” Bustos then appealed to international law, in this case to the American Convention on Human Rights, saying he should not have to pay a tax to exercise an internationally recognized human right. Incredibly, it worked! The government of Bolivia backed down and released Bustos from any obligation either to serve in the military or to pay the exemption tax.
  • A number of European war tax resisters have tried to bring cases before multi-national bodies there in the hopes of getting conscientious objection to military taxation recognized as a human right that governments must respect. For instance Roy Prockter is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
  • In some Quaker and Baptist officials in Massachusetts refused to collect tithes that were for the support of Puritan ministers, and were imprisoned for it. They appealed to the King of England, who rescinded the tax and instructed the Massachusetts Assembly to free the resisting nonconformists.
  • The Addio Pizzo movement in Italy cooperates with the above-ground government there in its resistance campaign against mafia extortion schemes. The police in Palermo “have agreed to discreetly look after the member shops” that conspicuously sell only goods from manufacturers who refuse to pay the pizzo mafia tax. The police have also arrested some mafia leaders, and offer to defend people who have been threatened by mafia reprisals.
  • In , saloon keepers in New York City enlisted the cooperation of the local government in their attempts to resist the payment of police shakedown money. In the shakedowns, the police would threaten to have the saloon keepers prosecuted on real or fanciful charges if they didn’t cough up bribes. To resist this, the New York County Liquor Dealers Association teamed up with the local District Attorney, the Police Commissioner, and the Society for the Prevention of Crime. The city agreed to waive fines against saloon owners who were prosecuted after failing to pay police protection money, thus making ineffective that common and effective police threat.
  • White Americans living in Muscogee (Creek) territory before Oklahoma became a state in resisted paying taxes to the Creek Nation government, hoping the federal government would back them up if push came to shove. And in fact the federal government abolished the tax (and the independent Muscogee governments) shortly before Oklahoma statehood.
  • People from the United States who had set up shop in the Isle of Pines, south of Cuba, in the hopes that the United States would keep the island for itself after wresting it from Spain were disappointed when the newly independent Cuba asserted sovereignty and started to tax them. In they declared that they would refuse to pay, and would defend themselves against Cuban tax collectors with force if need be — and they appealed to the United States to reclaim their island from the Cubans. Nothing doing, said the U.S. Secretary of State.