Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

Regulations, there are reports that a group of Crow Tribe 
members “regularly hunted along the Little Bighorn River” 
even  after  the  regulation  the  State  cites  was  in  effect. 
Hoxie, Parading Through History, at 26.  In 1889, the Office 
of  Indian  Affairs  wrote  to  U.  S.  Indian  Agents  in  the 
Northwest that “[f]requent complaints have been made to
this  Department  that  Indians  are  in  the  habit  of  leaving
their  reservations  for  the  purpose  of  hunting.”    28  Cong.
Rec. 6231 (1896).

Even  assuming  that  Wyoming  presents  an  accurate 
historical picture, the State’s mode of analysis is severely
flawed.  By  using  statehood  as  a  proxy  for  occupation, 
Wyoming  subverts  this  Court’s  clear  instruction  that 
treaty-protected rights “are not impliedly terminated upon 
statehood.”  Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 207. 

Finally, to the extent that Wyoming seeks to rely on this 
same  evidence  to  establish  that  all  land  in  Wyoming  was
functionally “occupied” by 1890, its arguments fall outside 
the question presented and are unpersuasive in any event. 
As  explained  below,  the  Crow  Tribe  would  have  under-
stood  occupation  to  denote  some  form  of  residence  or  set-
tlement.  See  infra,  at  19–20.  Furthermore,  Wyoming 
cannot  rely  on  Race  Horse  to  equate  occupation  with
statehood,  because  that  case’s  reasoning  rested  on  the
flawed  belief  that  statehood  could  not  coexist  with  a  con-
tinuing  treaty  right.  See  Race  Horse,  163  U. S.,  at  514; 
Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 207–208. 

Applying Mille Lacs, this is not a hard case.  The Wyo-
ming  Statehood  Act  did  not  abrogate  the  Crow  Tribe’s
hunting  right,  nor  did  the  1868  Treaty  expire  of  its  own
accord  at  that  time.    The  treaty  itself  defines  the  circum-
stances  in  which  the  right  will  expire.    Statehood  is  not 
one of them. 

III 
We  turn  next  to  the  question  whether  the  1868  Treaty