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Page Number: 17.0

14 

HERRERA v. WYOMING 

Opinion of the Court 

express its intent to do so.”  Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 202. 
“There  must  be  ‘clear  evidence  that  Congress  actually
considered the conflict between its intended action on the 
one hand and Indian treaty rights on the other, and chose 
to  resolve  that  conflict  by  abrogating  the  treaty.’ ”    Id.,  at 
202–203 (quoting Dion, 476 U. S., at 740); see Menominee 
Tribe,  391  U. S.,  at  412.    Like  the  Act  discussed  in  Mille 
Lacs,  the  Wyoming  Statehood  Act  “makes  no  mention  of 
Indian treaty rights” and “provides no clue that Congress
considered  the  reserved  rights  of  the  [Crow  Tribe]  and
decided  to  abrogate  those  rights  when  it  passed  the  Act.”
Cf.  Mille  Lacs,  526  U. S.,  at  203;  see  Wyoming  Statehood 
Act,  26  Stat.  222.    There  simply  is  no  evidence  that  Con-
gress intended to abrogate the 1868 Treaty right through
the  Wyoming  Statehood  Act,  much  less  the  “ ‘clear  evi-
dence’ ”  this  Court’s  precedent  requires.    Mille  Lacs,  526 
U. S., at 203.4 

Nor  is  there  any  evidence  in  the  treaty  itself  that  Con-
gress intended the hunting right to expire at statehood, or 
that the Crow Tribe would have understood it to do so.  A 
treaty  is  “essentially  a  contract  between  two  sovereign
nations.”  Fishing  Vessel  Assn.,  443  U. S.,  at  675.    Indian 
treaties “must be interpreted in light of the parties’ inten-
tions,  with  any  ambiguities  resolved  in  favor  of  the  Indi-
ans,”  Mille  Lacs,  526  U. S.,  at  206,  and  the  words  of  a 
treaty  must  be  construed  “ ‘in  the  sense  in  which  they
would  naturally  be  understood  by  the  Indians,’ ”  Fishing 
Vessel  Assn.,  443  U. S.,  at  676.    If  a  treaty  “itself  defines 
the  circumstances  under  which  the  rights  would  termi-
nate,”  it  is  to  those  circumstances  that  the  Court  must 
look  to  determine  if  the  right  ends  at  statehood.    Mille 
—————— 

4 Recall  also  that  the  Act  establishing  the  Wyoming  Territory  de-
clared that the creation of the Territory would not “impair the rights of
person  or  property  now  pertaining  to  the  Indians  in  said  Territory” 
unless  a  treaty  extinguished  those  rights.    Wyoming  Territory  Act,  15 
Stat. 178.