Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

matter of state sovereignty, a State has jurisdiction over all
of its territory, including Indian country.  See U. S. Const., 
Amdt. 10.  As this Court has phrased it, a State is generally 
“entitled to the sovereignty and jurisdiction over all the ter-
ritory within her limits.”  Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 
212, 228 (1845).

In  the  early  years  of  the  Republic,  the  Federal  Govern-
ment  sometimes  treated  Indian  country  as  separate  from
state  territory—in  the  same  way  that,  for  example,  New 
Jersey  is  separate  from  New  York.    Most  prominently,  in 
the 1832 decision in Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 561, 
this Court held that Georgia state law had no force in the
Cherokee Nation because the Cherokee Nation “is a distinct 
community occupying its own territory.”

But  the  “general  notion  drawn  from  Chief  Justice  Mar-
shall’s  opinion  in  Worcester  v.  Georgia”  “has  yielded  to 
closer  analysis.”  Organized  Village  of  Kake  v.  Egan,  369 
U. S. 60, 72 (1962).  “By 1880 the Court no longer viewed
reservations as distinct nations.”  Ibid.  Since the latter half 
of the 1800s, the Court has consistently and explicitly held 
that Indian reservations are “part of the surrounding State”
and subject to the State’s jurisdiction “except as forbidden 
by federal law.”  Ibid. 

To  take  a  few  examples:    In  1859,  the  Court  stated: 
States retain “the power of a sovereign over their persons 
and property, so far as” “necessary to preserve the peace of
the Commonwealth.”  New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 21 
How. 366, 370 (1859). 

In  1930:  “[R]eservations  are  part  of  the  State  within
which  they  lie  and  her  laws,  civil  and  criminal,  have  the 
same force therein as elsewhere within her limits, save that 
they  can  have  only  restricted  application  to  the  Indian 
wards.”  Surplus  Trading  Co.  v.  Cook,  281  U. S.  647,  651 
(1930).

In 1946:  “[I]n the absence of a limiting treaty obligation