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CASS COUNTY v. LEECH LAKE BAND OF
CHIPPEWA INDIANS
Opinion of the Court

Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to resolve whether state
and local governments may tax reservation land that was
made alienable by Congress and sold to non-Indians by the
Federal Government, but was later repurchased by a tribe.
We hold that ad valorem taxes may be imposed upon such
land because, under the test established by our precedents,
Congress has made “unmistakably clear” its intent to allow
such taxation.

I

The Leech Lake Band of Chippewa Indians is a federally
recognized Indian tribe. The Leech Lake Reservation,
which today encompasses 588,684 acres within the northern
Minnesota counties of Cass, Itasca, and Beltrami, was estab-
lished by federal treaty in 1855 and was augmented by sub-
sequent treaties and Executive Orders.

During the late 19th century, the Federal Government
changed its policy of setting aside reservation lands exclu-
sively for Indian tribes under federal supervision. The new
“allotment” policy removed signiﬁcant portions of reserva-
tion land from tribal ownership and federal protection, allot-
ting some parcels to individual Indians and providing for
other parcels to be sold to non-Indians. See County of Yak-
ima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation,
502 U. S. 251, 253–254 (1992); F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal
Indian Law 127–138 (1982). The purpose of the policy was
to assimilate Indians into American society and to open res-
ervation lands to ownership by non-Indians.

Id., at 128.

Most of the allotments made by the Federal Government
were implemented pursuant to the General Allotment Act of

McGaw; and for the National Congress of American Indians by Tracy A.
Labin and Kim Jerome Gottschalk.

Briefs of amici curiae were ﬁled for the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance
by Douglas Y. Freeman; for the Oneida Indian Nation of New York by
William W. Taylor III and Michael R. Smith; and for the Tribes of Forest
County Potawatomi Community et al. by Carol Brown Biermeier.