Case ID: us-ct-cl_46/html/0680-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Holmes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN IOWA v. THE UNITED STATES. THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN OKLAHOMA v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [45 C. Cls. R., 287; 220 U. S. R., 481.]
    The principal question in tWs case is whether Indians who individually remove from the agency of the tribe and acquire a residence in another part of the country remote from the agency have a right to participate in annuities assured to the tribe by treaties.
    
      The court below decides:
    I.Though, all the parties to a suit unite in a stipulation that certain ex parte affidavits may be read as evidence the court ‘will not be bound thereby.
    II.Where individual Indians voluntarily and without the consent of the United States withdrew from the reservation which had been provided for the tribe they ceased to be a legal entity or part of the entity and becajne simply individual Indians.
    III.A jurisdictional act of Congress can give individual Indians a forum in which to assert such rights as they may possess.
    IY. The United States as guardian of Indians deal with a nation,, tribe, or band, and have never entered into contracts, compacts, or treaties with individual Indians.
    Y. Where a treaty provides that each of the principal chiefs shall receive $500 annually out of annuities payable to the tribe with the approbation of their agent it is simply an agreement between the United States on the one part and the tribe on the other that that amount of money shall be paid to each chief with the approbation of their agent. This does not mean that a tribe may divide and subdivide.
    YI. There is no vested interest in unallotted tribal lands and undistributed tribal funds. The lands and moneys of an Indian tribe are public lands and public moneys. ' The treaties with the Sacs and Foxes and the evidence offered in the case reviewed.
    The opinion of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.
   Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court April 24, 1911.

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered a dissenting opinion.