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Page Number: 4.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to  notify  the  Reporter  of 
Decisions,  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  Washington,  D. C.  20543, 
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

Nos. 21–1484 and 22–51 
_________________ 

21–1484 

ARIZONA, ET AL., PETITIONERS 
v. 
NAVAJO NATION, ET AL. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ET AL., 
PETITIONERS 
v. 
NAVAJO NATION, ET AL. 

22–51 

ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[June 22, 2023] 

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court. 
In  1848,  the  United  States  won  the  Mexican-American 
War and acquired vast new territory from Mexico in what 
would  become  the  American  West.  The  Navajos  lived
within  a  discrete  portion  of  that  expansive  and  newly 
American territory.  For the next two decades, however, the 
United  States  and  the  Navajos  periodically  waged  war 
against  one  another.  In  1868,  the  United  States  and  the 
Navajos  agreed  to  a  peace  treaty.    In  exchange  for  the 
Navajos’ promise not to engage in further war, the United 
States  established  a  large  reservation  for  the  Navajos  in
their  original  homeland  in  the  western  United  States. 
Under  the  1868  treaty,  the  Navajo  Reservation  includes
(among  other  things)  the  land,  the  minerals  below  the 
land’s surface, and the timber on the land, as well as the 
right to use needed water on the reservation.