Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1484_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 14

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

Navajos.  None is persuasive. 

First,  the  Navajos  note  that  the  text  of  the  1868  treaty 
established the Navajo Reservation as a “permanent home.” 
15 Stat. 671.  In the Tribe’s view, that language means that
the United States agreed to take affirmative steps to secure 
water.  But that assertion finds no support in the treaty’s 
text  or  history,  or  in  any  of  this  Court’s  precedents.    The 
1868  treaty  granted  a  reservation  to  the  Navajos  and 
imposed  a  variety  of  specific  obligations  on  the  United 
States—for  example,  building  schools  and  a  chapel, 
providing  teachers,  and  supplying  seeds  and  agricultural
implements.  The reservation contains a number of water 
sources that the Navajos have used and continue to rely on.
But as explained above, the 1868 treaty imposed no duty on
the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water
for the Tribe.  The 1868 treaty, as demonstrated by its text
and history, helped to ensure that the Navajos could return
to  their  original  land.  See  Treaty  Between  the  United
States of America and the Navajo Tribe of Indians With a 
Record of the Discussions That Led to Its Signing 2, 4, 10–
11, 15 (1968). 

Second,  the  Navajos  rely  on  the  provision  of  the  1868 
treaty  in  which  the  United  States  agreed  to  provide  the 
Tribe with certain “seeds and agricultural implements” for
up to three years.  15 Stat. 669.  In the Navajos’ view, those 
seeds  and  implements  would  be  unusable  without  water.
But  the  reservation  contains  a  number  of  water  sources 
that the Navajos have used and continue to rely on.  And 
the United States’s duty to temporarily provide seeds and 
agricultural implements for three years did not include an
additional  duty  to  take  affirmative  steps  to  secure  water,
and to do so indefinitely into the future.  If anything, the 
treaty’s express requirement that the United States supply 
seeds and agricultural implements for a 3-year period—like
the  treaty’s  requirement  that  the  United  States  build 
schools,  a  chapel,  and  the  like—demonstrates  that  the