Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

Treaty  analysis  begins  with  the  text,  and  treaty  terms
are construed as “ ‘they would naturally be understood by
the  Indians.’ ”  Fishing  Vessel  Assn.,  443  U. S.,  at  676. 
Here  it  is  clear  that  the  Crow  Tribe  would  have  under-
stood  the  word  “unoccupied”  to  denote  an  area  free  of 
residence or settlement by non-Indians. 

That  interpretation  follows  first  and  foremost  from
several  cues  in  the  treaty’s  text.    For  example,  Article  IV
of  the  1868  Treaty  made  the  hunting  right  contingent  on 
peace “among the whites and Indians on the borders of the 
hunting  districts,”  thus  contrasting  the  unoccupied  hunt-
ing districts with areas of white settlement.  15 Stat. 650. 
The  treaty  elsewhere  used  the  word  “occupation”  to  refer 
to the Tribe’s residence inside the reservation boundaries, 
and referred to the Tribe members as “settlers” on the new 
reservation.  Arts. II, VI, id., at 650–651.  The treaty also
juxtaposed  occupation  and  settlement  by  stating  that  the 
Tribe was to make “no permanent settlement” other than 
on the new reservation, but could hunt on the “unoccupied 
lands” of the United States.  Art. IV, id., at 650.  Contem-
poraneous  definitions  further  support  a  link  between 
occupation  and  settlement.  See  W.  Anderson,  A  Diction-

—————— 

It can be “appropriate in special circumstances” for a court to address 
a preclusion argument sua sponte.  Arizona v. California, 530 U. S. 392, 
412 (2000).  But because the Wyoming District Court “did not address”
this contention, “we decline to address it here.”  County of Los Angeles 
v. Mendez, 581 U. S. ___, ___, n. (2017) (slip op., at 8, n.); see Cutter v. 
Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7 (2005); Archer v. Warner, 538 U. S. 
314,  322–323  (2003).    Resolution  of  this  question  would  require  fact-
intensive analyses of whether this issue was fully and fairly litigated in 
Repsis  or  was  forfeited  in  this  litigation,  among  other  matters.    These 
gateway  issues  should  be  decided  before  this  Court  addresses  them, 
especially  given  that  even  the  dissent  acknowledges  that  one  of  the 
preclusion  issues  raised  by  the  parties  is  important  and  undecided, 
post,  at  14,  and  some  of  the  parties’  other  arguments  are  equally 
weighty.  Unlike the dissent, we do not address these issues in the first 
instance.