Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

Parker, 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (“[T]he 1882 Act falls 
into  another  category  of  surplus  land  Acts:  those  that 
merely  opened  reservation  land  to  settlement. . . .  Such 
schemes allow non-Indian settlers to own land on the res-
ervation” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

It isn’t so hard to see why.  The federal government issued
its own land patents to many homesteaders throughout the
West.  These patents transferred legal title and are the ba-
sis for much of the private land ownership in a number of 
States today.  But no one thinks any of this diminished the 
United States’s claim to sovereignty over any land.  To ac-
complish that would require an act of cession, the transfer 
of a sovereign claim from one nation to another.  3 E. Wash-
burn,  American  Law  of  Real  Property  *521–*524.    And 
there  is  no  reason  why  Congress  cannot  reserve  land  for 
tribes in much the same way, allowing them to continue to
exercise governmental functions over land even if they no
longer own it communally.  Indeed, such an arrangement 
seems  to  be  contemplated  by  §1151(a)’s  plain  terms.    Cf. 
Seymour, 368 U. S., at 357–358.3 

Oklahoma reminds us that allotment was often the first 
step  in  a  plan  ultimately  aimed  at  disestablishment.    As 
this Court explained in Mattz, Congress’s expressed policy 
at the time “was to continue the reservation system and the 
trust status of Indian lands, but to allot tracts to individual 
Indians  for  agriculture  and  grazing.”  412  U. S.,  at  496. 
Then, “[w]hen all the lands had been allotted and the trust 
expired,  the  reservation  could  be  abolished.”    Ibid.  This 
plan was set in motion nationally in the General Allotment 

—————— 

3 The dissent not only fails to acknowledge these features of the statute
and our precedents.  It proceeds in defiance of them, suggesting that by
moving to eliminate communal title and relaxing restrictions on aliena-
tion, “Congress destroyed the foundation of [the Creek Nation’s] sover-
eignty.” Post, at 18–19.  But this Court long ago rejected the notion that 
the  purchase  of  lands  by  non-Indians  is  inconsistent  with  reservation 
status. See Seymour, 368 U. S., at 357–358.