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Page Number: 8.0

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

at  419.  That  grant  came  with  the  caveat  that  “the  right 
thus guaranteed by the United States shall be continued to
said tribe of Indians, so long as they shall exist as a nation, 
and  continue  to  occupy  the  country  hereby  assigned  to 
them.”  Ibid.  The promised patent formally issued in 1852. 
See  Woodward  v.  De  Graffenried,  238  U. S.  284,  293–294 
(1915).

These early treaties did not refer to the Creek lands as a
“reservation”—perhaps because that word had not yet ac-
quired  such  distinctive  significance  in  federal  Indian law. 
But  we  have  found  similar  language  in  treaties  from  the
same era sufficient to create a reservation.  See Menominee 
Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S. 404, 405 (1968) (grant of 
land “ ‘for a home, to be held as Indian lands are held,’ ” es-
tablished a reservation).  And later Acts of Congress left no 
room for doubt.  In 1866, the United States entered yet an-
other  treaty  with  the  Creek  Nation.    This  agreement  re-
duced the size of the land set aside for the Creek, compen-
sating  the  Tribe  at  a  price  of  30  cents  an  acre.  Treaty
Between the United States and the Creek Nation of Indi-
ans, Art. III, June 14, 1866, 14 Stat. 786.  But Congress ex-
plicitly  restated  its  commitment  that  the  remaining  land 
would “be forever set apart as a  home for said Creek  Na-
tion,” which it now referred to as “the reduced Creek reser-
vation.”  Arts. III, IX, id., at 786, 788.1  Throughout the late 

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1  The dissent by THE CHIEF JUSTICE (hereinafter the dissent) suggests
that the Creek’s intervening alliance with the Confederacy “ ‘unsettled’ ” 
and “ ‘forfeit[ed]’ ” the longstanding promises of the United States.  Post, 
at 3.  But the Treaty of 1866 put an end to any Civil War hostility, prom-
ising mutual amnesty, “perpetual peace and friendship,” and guarantee-
ing the Tribe the “quiet possession of their country.”  Art. I, 14 Stat. 786. 
Though this treaty expressly reduced the size of the Creek Reservation,
the  Creek  were  compensated  for  the  lost  territory,  and  otherwise  “re-
tained” their unceded portion.  Art. III, ibid.  Contrary to the dissent’s 
implication,  nothing  in  the  Treaty  of  1866  purported  to  repeal  prior 
treaty promises. Cf. Art. XII, id., at 790 (the United States expressly “re-
affirms  and  reassumes  all  obligations  of  treaty  stipulations  with  the