Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/348/272/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:11:36+00:00

Document:
The Tee-Hit-Ton Indians, an identifiable group of American Indians belonging to the Tlingit Tribe of Alaskan Indians, held not entitled to compensation under the Fifth Amendment for the taking by the United States of certain timber from Alaskan lands in and near the Tongass National Forest allegedly belonging to the Tee-Hit-Ton Indians. Pp. 348 U. S. 273-291.
1. Neither § 8 of the Organic Act for Alaska of May 17, 1884, nor § 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900, providing for a civil government for Alaska, constituted a recognition by Congress of any permanent rights of Indians in Alaskan lands occupied by them, and this policy of nonrecognition was maintained and reflected by Congress in the Joint Resolution of August 8, 1947, authorizing the sale of such timber without recognizing or denying the validity of any claims of possessory rights to land or timber. Pp. 348 U. S. 277-279.
2. Permissive Indian occupancy may be extinguished by Congress in its own discretion without compensation. Johnson v. Mclntosh, 8 Wheat. 543; Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517; United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339. Pp. 348 U. S. 279-282.
3. The recovery in United States v. Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40, 341 U. S. 48, was based upon statutory direction to pay for the aboriginal title in the special jurisdictional act to equalize the Tillamooks with the neighboring tribes, rather than upon a holding that there had been a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 348 U. S. 282-285.
4. The record does not sustain petitioners' contention that their stage of civilization, their concept of ownership of property, and their treatment by Russia take them out of the rule applicable to the Indians of the States. On the contrary, it sustains the finding that their use of their lands was like the use of the nomadic tribes of the States Indians, and there was no evidence that the Russian handling of the Indian land problem was different from ours. Pp. 348 U. S. 285-288.
5. Indian occupancy, not specifically recognized as ownership by action authorized by Congress, may be extinguished by the Government without compensation. Pp. 348 U. S. 288-291.
128 Ct.Cl. 82,120 F.Supp. 202, affirmed.
evidence, largely documentary, relevant to these legal issues was introduced by both parties before a Commissioner who thereupon made findings of fact. The Court of Claims adopted these findings and held that petitioner was an identifiable group of American Indians residing in Alaska; that its interest in the lands prior to purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867 was "original Indian title" or "Indian right of occupancy." Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 128 Ct.Cl. 82, 85, 87, 120 F.Supp. 202, 204. It was further held that if such original Indian title survived the Treaty of 1867, 15 Stat. 539, Arts. III and VI, by which Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States, such title was not sufficient basis to maintain this suit, as there had been no recognition by Congress of any legal rights in petitioner to the land in question. 120 F.Supp. 202, 128 Ct.Cl. at 92. The court said that no rights inured to plaintiff by virtue of legislation by Congress. As a result of these conclusions, no answer was necessary to questions 2, 5 and 6. The Tee-Hit-Tons' petition was thereafter dismissed.
Indian occupation between this decision of the Court of Claims, 120 F.Supp. 202, 128 Ct.Cl. at 90, and the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Miller v. United States, 159 F.2d 997, 1003, we granted certiorari, 347 U.S. 1009.
"Nothing in this resolution shall be construed as recognizing or denying the validity of any claims of possessory rights to lands or timber within the exterior boundaries of the Tongass National Forest."
alleges constitutes a compensable taking by the United States of a portion of its proprietary interest in the land.
The problem presented is the nature of the petitioner's interest in the land, if any. Petitioner claims a "full proprietary ownership" of the land, or, in the alternative, at least a "recognized" right to unrestricted possession, occupation and use. Either ownership or recognized possession, petitioner asserts, is compensable. If it has a fee simple interest in the entire tract, it has an interest in the timber, and its sale is a partial taking of its right to "possess, use and dispose of it." United States v. General Motors, 323 U. S. 373, 323 U. S. 378. It is petitioner's contention that its tribal predecessors have continually claimed, occupied, and used the land from time immemorial; that, when Russia took Alaska, the Tlingits had a well developed social order which included a concept of property ownership; that Russia, while it possessed Alaska, in no manner interfered with their claim to the land; that Congress has, by subsequent acts, confirmed and recognized petitioner's right to occupy the land permanently, and therefore the sale of the timber off such lands constitutes a taking pro tanto of its asserted rights in the area.
The Government denies that petitioner has any compensable interest. It asserts that the Tee-Hit-Tons' property interest, if any, is merely that of the right to the use of the land at the Government's will; that Congress has never recognized any legal interest of petitioner in the land, and therefore, without such recognition, no compensation is due the petitioner for any taking by the United States.
for subsequent taking. [Footnote 9] The petitioner contends that Congress has sufficiently "recognized" its possessory rights in the land in question so as to make its interest compensable. Petitioner points specifically to two statutes to sustain this contention. The first is § 8 of the Organic Act for Alaska of May 17, 1884, 23 Stat. 24. [Footnote 10] The second is § 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900, which was to provide for a civil government for Alaska, 31 Stat. 321, 330. [Footnote 11] The Court of Appeals in the Miller case, supra, felt that these Acts constituted recognition of Indian ownership. 159 F.2d 997, 1002-1003.
the definite intention by congressional action or authority to accord legal rights, not merely permissive occupation. Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S. 86, 337 U. S. 101.
II. Indian Title. -- (a) The nature of aboriginal Indian interest in land and the various rights as between the Indians and the United States dependent on such interest are far from novel as concerns our Indian inhabitants. It is well settled that, in all the States of the Union, the tribes who inhabited the lands of the States held claim to such lands after the coming of the white man, under what is sometimes termed original Indian title or permission from the whites to occupy. That description means mere possession not specifically recognized as ownership by Congress. After conquest, they were permitted to occupy portions of territory over which they had previously exercised "sovereignty," as we use that term. This is not a property right, but amounts to a right of occupancy which the sovereign grants and protects against intrusion by third parties, but which right of occupancy may be terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without any legally enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.
right of occupancy to another. It confirmed the practice of two hundred years of American history "that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest." 8 Wheat. at 21 U. S. 587.
"We will not enter into the controversy whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be, respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully asserted."
P. 21 U. S. 588.
"Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites were not always the aggressors, unavoidably ensued. European policy, numbers, and skill prevailed. As the white population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded. The country in the immediate neighborhood of agriculturists became unfit for them. The game fled into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the Indians followed. The soil, to which the crown originally claimed title, being no longer occupied by its ancient inhabitants, was parceled out according to the will of the sovereign power and taken possession of by persons who claimed immediately from the crown, or mediately, through its grantees or deputies."
Pp. 21 U. S. 590-591. See Buttz v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 119 U. S. 55, 119 U. S. 66; Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 41 U. S. 409; Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195, 38 U. S. 201.
a controversy over timber, this Court held the Wisconsin title good.
"The grantee, it is true, would take only the naked fee, and could not disturb the occupancy of the Indians: that occupancy could only be interfered with or determined by the United States. It is to be presumed that, in this matter, the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race. Be that as it may, the propriety or justice of their action towards the Indians with respect to their lands is a question of governmental policy, and is not a matter open to discussion in a controversy between third parties, neither of whom derives title from the Indians. The right of the United States to dispose of the fee of lands occupied by them has always been recognized by this court from the foundation of the government."
P. 95 U. S. 525.
"Extinguishment of Indian title based on aboriginal possession is, of course, a different matter. The power of Congress in that regard is supreme. The manner, method and time of such extinguishment raise political, not justiciable, issues."
United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 314 U. S. 347.
made to allow tribes to recover for wrongs as a matter of grace, not because of legal liability. 60 Stat. 1050.
(b) There is one opinion in a case decided by this Court that contains language indicating that unrecognized Indian title might be compensable under the Constitution when taken by the United States. United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40.
Recovery was allowed under a jurisdictional Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 801, that permitted payments to a few specific Indian tribes for "legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of the original Indian title" to land because of some unratified treaties negotiated with them and other tribes. The other tribes had already been compensated. [Footnote 14] Five years later, this Court unanimously held that none of the former opinions in Vol. 329 of the United States Reports expressed the view that recovery was grounded on a taking under the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Tillamooks, 341 U. S. 48. Interest, payable on recovery for a taking under the Fifth Amendment, was denied.
from Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 wheat. 543, that the taking by the United States of unrecognized Indian title is not compensable under the Fifth Amendment.
This is true not because an Indian or an Indian tribe has no standing to sue, or because the United States has not consented to be sued for the taking of original Indian title, but because Indian occupation of land without government recognition of ownership creates no rights against taking or extinction by the United States protected by the Fifth Amendment or any other principle of law.
(c) What has been heretofore set out deals largely with the Indians of the Plains and east of the Mississippi. The Tee-Hit-Tons urge, however, that their stage of civilization and their concept of ownership of property takes them out of the rule applicable to the Indians of the States. They assert that Russia never took their lands in the sense that European nations seized the rest of America. The Court of Claims, however, saw no distinction between their use of the land and that of the Indians of the Eastern United States. See Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 128 Ct.Cl. 82, 87, 120 F.Supp. 202. That court had no evidence that the Russian handling of the Indian land problem differed from ours. The natives were left the use of the great part of their vast hunting and fishing territory, but, what Russia wanted for its use and that of its licensees, it took. The court's conclusion on this issue was based on strong evidence.
only through the female line. At the present time, there are only a few women of childbearing age, and to total membership of some 65.
"Any member of the tribe may use any portion of the land that he wishes, and, as long as he uses it, that is his, for his own enjoyment, and is not to be trespassed upon by anybody else, but, the minute he stops using it, then any other member of the tribe can come in and use that area."
When the Russians first came to the Tlingit territory, the most important of the chiefs moved the people to what is now the location of the town of Wrangell. Each tribe took a portion of Wrangell harbor, and the chief gave permission to the Russians to build a house on the shore.
The witness learned the alleged boundaries of the Tee-Hit-Ton area from hunting and fishing with his uncle after his return from Carlisle Indian School about 1904. From the knowledge so obtained, he outlined in red on the map, which petitioner filed as an exhibit, the territory claimed by the Tee-Hit-Tons. Use by other tribal members is sketchily asserted. This is the same 350,000 acres claimed by the petition. On it, he marked six places to show the Indians' use of the land: (1) his great uncle was buried here, (2) a town, (3) his uncle's house, (4) a town, (5) his mother's house, (6) smokehouse. He also pointed out the uses of this tract for fishing salmon and for hunting beaver, deer, and mink.
descended only through the female line, the various tribes of the Tlingits allowed one another to use their lands. Before power boats, the Indians would put their shelters for hunting and fishing away from villages. With the power boats, they used them as living quarters.
"We agree with MR. JUSTICE REED that no legal rights are today to be recognized in the Shoshones by reason of this treaty. We agree with MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE MURPHY as to their moral deserts. We do not mean to leave the impression that the two have any relation to each other. The finding that the treaty creates no legal obligations does not restrict Congress from such appropriations as its judgment dictates 'for the health, education, and industrial advancement of said Indians,' which is the position in which Congress would find itself if we found that it did create legal obligations, and tried to put a value on them."
Id. at 324 U. S. 358.
does not uphold harshness as against tenderness toward the Indians, but it leaves with Congress, where it belongs, the policy of Indian gratuities for the termination of Indian occupancy of Government-owned land, rather than making compensation for its value a rigid constitutional principle.
A partial taking is compensable. United States v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 339 U. S. 799, 339 U. S. 809; United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725, 339 U. S. 739; United States v. General Motors Co., 323 U. S. 373; United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 U. S. 111, 304 U. S. 118.
See Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049; Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 31 U. S. 582; Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 248 U. S. 87, 248 U. S. 89; United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 314 U. S. 354.
"Separate Trials. The Court, in furtherance of convenience or to avoid prejudice, may order a separate trial of any claim, counterclaim, or of any separate issues or of any number of claims, counterclaims, or issues, and may enter appropriate orders or judgments with respect to any of such issues, claims, or counterclaims that are tried separately."
"1. Is the plaintiff an 'identifiable group of American Indians residing within the territorial limits of . . . Alaska' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1505?"
"2. What property rights, if any, would plaintiff, after defendant's 1867 acquisition of sovereignty over Alaska, then have had in the area, if any, which from aboriginal times it had through its members, their spouses, in-laws, and permittees used or occupied in their accustomed Indian manner for fishing, hunting, berrying, maintaining permanent or seasonal villages and other structures, or burying the dead?"
"3. What such rights, if any, would have inured to it under the Act of May 17, 1884, 23 Stat. 24, in the area, if any, which on that date was either so used or occupied by it or was claimed by it?"
"4. What such rights, if any, would have inured to it under the Act of June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 321, 330, in the area, if any, which on that date was so used or occupied by it?"
"5. In the event a decision of an affirmative nature on any of issues 2, 3, or 4, is followed by evidence indicating specific property rights on the part of plaintiff at any of those times, then would the testimony of plaintiff's witness Paul as to recent less intensive use of the areas claimed by plaintiff [Tr. 13-14, 29-30, 44-45, 96-97] constitute prima facie evidence of termination or loss of such rights?"
"6. If any such property rights are established, and had not meanwhile been terminated or lost, then would the execution of the Timber Sale Agreement of August 20, 1951 (as admitted in paragraph 10 of defendant's Answer), constitute a compensable taking of such rights, or would it give rise to a right to an accounting within the jurisdiction of this Court, or both?"
120 F.Supp. 202, 204, 128 Ct.Cl. 82.
See Hearings before House Committee on Agriculture on H.J.Res. 205, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; Committee Print No. 12, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 2d Sess.
61 Stat. 921, § 2(a).
"That 'possessory rights' as used in this resolution shall mean all rights, if any should exist, which are based upon aboriginal occupancy or title, or upon section 8 of the Act of May 17, 1884 (23 Stat. 24), section 14 of the Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1095), or section 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900 (31 Stat. 321), whether claimed by native tribes, native villages, native individuals, or other persons, and which have not been confirmed by patent or court decision or included within any reservation."
United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U. S. 103, 295 U. S. 109-110; Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U. S. 476, 299 U. S. 497; Chippewa Indians v. United States, 301 U. S. 358, 301 U. S. 375-376; United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U. S. 119; Sioux Tribe of Indians v. United States, 316 U. S. 317, 316 U. S. 326.
". . . That the Indians or other persons in said district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation or now claimed by them, but the terms under which such persons may acquire title to such lands is reserved for future legislation by Congress. . . ."
"The Indians or persons conducting schools or missions in the district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands now actually in their use or occupation. . . ."
23 Stat. 24; see 15 Cong.Rec. 530-531; H.R.Rep.No.476, 48th Cong., 1st Sess. 2; 31 Stat. 321; see 33 Cong.Rec. 5966.
61 Stat. 921, § 3(b); see p. 348 U. S. 276, supra; H.R.Rep.No.873, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
329 U.S. at p. 329 U. S. 44.
It relies also, p. 1001, on Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, and United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U. S. 119. These cases, however, concern Government taking of lands held under Indian title recognized by the United States as an Indian reservation. See 185 U.S. at 185 U. S. 390, United States v. Algoma Lumber Co., 305 U. S. 415, 305 U. S. 420, and 329 U. S. 329 U.S. 40, 329 U. S. 52, note 29. See United States v. 10 Acres of Land, 75 F.Supp. 841.
The statement concerning the Miller case was needed to meet the Grimes Packing Company argument that Congress could not have intended to authorize the Interior Department to include an important and valuable fishing area, see Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S. 86, note 10, in a permanent reservation for an Indian population of 57 eligible voters. Actual occupation of Alaskan lands by Indians authorized the creation of a reservation. 337 U.S. at 337 U. S. 91. One created by Congress through recognition of a permanent right in the Indians from aboriginal use would require compensation to them for reopening to the public. Id. at 337 U. S. 103-106. It was therefore important to show that there was no right arising from aboriginal occupation.
Three million dollars was involved in the Tillamook case as the value of the land, and the interest granted by the Court of Claims was $14,000,000. The Government pointed out that, if aboriginal Indian title was compensable without specific legislation to that effect, there were claims with estimated interest already pending under the Indian jurisdictional act aggregating $9,000,000,000.
In Carino v. Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, 212 U. S. 449, this Court did uphold as valid a claim of land ownership in which tribal custom and tribal recognition of ownership played a part. Petitioner was an Igorot who asserted the right to register ownership of certain land although he had no document of title from the Spanish government and no recognition of ownership had been extended by Spain or by the United States. The United States Government had taken possession of the land for a public use, and disputed the fact that petitioner had any legally recognizable title.
The basis of the Court's decision, however, distinguishes it from applicability to the Tee-Hit-Ton claim. The Court relied chiefly upon the purpose of our acquisition of the Philippines as disclosed by the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, which was to administer property and rights "for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof." 32 Stat. 695. This purpose in acquisition and its effect on land held by the natives was distinguished from the settlement of the white race in the United States, where "the dominant purpose of the whites in America was to occupy the land." 212 U.S. at 212 U. S. 458. The Court further found that the Spanish law and exercise of Spanish sovereignty over the islands tended to support, rather than defeat, a prescriptive right. Since this was no communal claim to a vast uncultivated area, it was natural to apply the law of prescription, rather than a rule of sovereign ownership or dominium. Carino's claim was to a 370-acre farm which his grandfather had fenced some fifty years before, and was used by three generations as a pasture for livestock and some cultivation of vegetables and grain. The case bears closer analogy to the ordinary prescriptive rights situation, rather than to a recognition by this Court of any aboriginal use and possession amounting to fee simple ownership.
Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (The Tlinkit Indians), pp. 93-115 and 120-122; Oberg, The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians (a dissertation submitted to the University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Dec. 1937); Goldschmidt-Haas Report to Commissioner of Indian Affairs on Possessory Rights of the Natives of Southeastern Alaska, pp. i, ii, iv, 1-25, 31-33, 123-133, related statements numbered 65, 66, 67, 68 and 69, and chart 11; S.Doc.No.152, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. (Russian Administration of Alaska and the Status of the Alaskan Natives); see Johnson v. Pacific Coast S.S. Co., 2 Alaska 224.
It is significant that, even with the Pueblo Indians of the Mexican Land Sessions, despite their centuries-old sedentary agricultural and pastoral life, the United States found it proper to confirm to them a title in their lands. The area in which the Pueblos are located came under our sovereignty by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 9 Stat. 922, and the Gadsden Purchase Treaty of December 30, 1853, 10 Stat. 1031. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo contained a guarantee by the United States to respect the property rights of Mexicans located within the territory acquired. Art. VIII, 9 Stat. 929. This provision was incorporated by reference into the Gadsden Treaty. Art. V, 10 Stat. 1035. The latter treaty also contained a provision that no grants of land within the ceded territory made after a certain date would be recognized or any grants "made previously [would] be respected or be considered as obligatory which have not been located and duly recorded in the archives of Mexico." Art. VI, 10 Stat. 1035. This provision was held to bar recognition of fee ownership in the Pueblo of Santa Rosa which claimed such by immemorial use and possession as well as by prescription against Spain and Mexico because they could produce no paper title to the lands. Pueblo of Santa Rosa v. Fall, 56 App.D.C. 259, 262, 12 F.2d 332, 335, reversed on other grounds, 273 U. S. 273 U.S. 315.
Disputes as to the Indian titles in the Pueblos and their position as wards required congressional action for settlement. See Brayer, Pueblo Indian Land Grants of the "Rio Abajo", New Mexico; Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law, c. 20. These problems were put in the way of solution only by congressional recognition of the Pueblos' title to their land and the decisions of this Court as to their racial character as Indians, subject to necessary federal tutelage. 10 Stat. 308, Creation of Office of Surveyor-General of New Mexico to report area of bona fide holdings; Report of Secretary of the Interior, covering that of the Surveyor-General of New Mexico, S.Exec.Doc.No.5, 34th Cong., 3d Sess. 174, 411; Confirmation of titles for approved Pueblo Land Claims, 11 Stat. 374; S.Doc.No.1117, 37th Cong., 2d Sess. 581-582, Report of Secretary of Interior showing New Mexico Pueblos with confirmed titles.
"although they are valid, are not held to be so by this Government, nor by any of its courts, until the claim shall have been acted on specifically. I will say, furthermore, that the whole land system of the Territory of New Mexico is held in abeyance until these private land claims shall have been acted on by Congress."
Cong.Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 2090 (1858).
The position as Indians of the inhabitants of the Pueblos was considered in United States v. Joseph, 94 U. S. 614, and United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28.
For an interesting sidelight on the difficulties inherent in the problems, see Brayer, supra, p. 14, and United States v. Ritchie, 17 How. 525.
Thus, it is seen that congressional action was deemed necessary to validate the ownership of the Pueblos whose claim was certainly founded upon stronger legal and historical basis than the Tlingits.
The Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Justice agree with this conclusion. See Committee Print No. 12, Supplemental Reports dated January 11, 1954, on H.R. 1921, 83d Cong., 2d Sess.
"That the Indian right of occupancy is not a property right in the accepted legal sense was clearly indicated when United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks, 341 U. S. 48 (1951), was reargued. The Supreme Court stated, in a per curiam decision, that the taking of lands to which Indians had a right of occupancy was not a taking within the meaning of the fifth amendment entitling the dispossessed to just compensation."
"Since possessory rights based solely upon aboriginal occupancy or use are thus of an unusual nature, subject to the whim of the sovereign owner of the land who can give good title to third parties by extinguishing such rights, they cannot be regarded as clouds upon title in the ordinary sense of the word. Therefore, we suggest the deletion, in section 3(c) of the bill, of the words 'upon aboriginal occupancy or title, or.' P. 3."
"We also concur in the belief which we understand is being expressed by the Department of the Interior that no rights presently exist on the basis of aboriginal occupancy or title. We believe that this is equally true with respect to lands within the Tongass National Forest just as it is with respect to lands elsewhere in Alaska."
Department of Justice: "Thus, there is no legal or equitable basis for claims or rights allegedly arising from aboriginal occupancy or title.'" P. 11.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concur, dissenting.
"the Indians or other persons in said district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation or now claimed by them, but the terms under which such persons may acquire title to such lands is reserved for future legislation by Congress: And provided further, That parties who have located mines or mineral privileges therein under the laws of the United States applicable to the public domain, or who have occupied and improved or exercised acts of ownership over such claims, shall not be disturbed therein, but shall be allowed to perfect their title to such claims by payment as aforesaid."
"The condition of the Indians residing in said Territory, what lands, if any, should be reserved for their use, what provision shall be made for their education[,] what rights by occupation of settlers should be recognized,"
title, but as reserving the question whether they have any rights in the land.
It is said that, since § 8 contemplates the possible future acquisition of "title," it expressly negates any idea that the Indians have any "title." That is the argument, and that apparently is the conclusion of the Court.
There are, it seems to me, two answers to that proposition.
First. The first turns on the words of the Act. The general land laws of the United States were not made applicable to Alaska. § 8. No provision was made for opening up the lands to settlement, for clearing titles, for issuing patents, all as explained in Gruening, The State of Alaska (1954), p. 47 et seq. There were, however at least two classes of claimants to Alaskan lands -- one, the Indians; the other, those who had mining claims. Section 8 of the Act did not recognize the "title" of either. Rather, it provided that one group, the miners, should be allowed to "perfect their title," while the others, the Indians, were to acquire "title" only as provided by future legislation. Obviously the word "title" was used in the conveyancer's sense, and § 8 did service in opening the door to perfection of "title" in the case of miners, and in deferring the perfection of "title" in the case of the Indians.
at the same time, to allow the development of the mineral resources. . . ."
"I do not know by what tenure the Indians are there, nor what ordinarily characterizes their claim of title, but it will be observed that the language of the proviso I propose to amend puts them into very small quarters. I think about 2 feet by 6 to each Indian would be the proper construction of the language 'actually in their use or occupation.' Under the general rule of occupation applied to an Indian by a white man, that would be a tolerably limited occupation, and might possibly land them in the sea."
and small quantities of ground, we thought the reservation of lands occupied by the Indians or by anybody else was a sufficient guard against any serious invasion of their rights."
The conclusion seems clear that Congress, in the 1884 Act, recognized the claims of these Indians to their Alaskan lands. What those lands were was not known. Where they were located, what were their metes and bounds were also unknown. Senator Plumb thought they probably were small and restricted. But all agreed that the Indians were to keep them, wherever they lay. It must be remembered that the Congress was legislating about a Territory concerning which little was known. No report was available showing the nature and extent of any claims to the land. No Indian was present to point out his tribe's domain. Therefore, Congress did the humane thing of saving to the Indians all rights claimed; it let them keep what they had prior to the new Act. The future course of action was made clear -- conflicting claims would be reconciled, and the Indian lands would be put into reservations.
There remains the question what kind of "title" the right of use and occupancy embraces. Some Indian rights concern fishing alone. See Tulee v. Washington, 315 U. S. 681. Others may include only hunting or grazing or other limited uses. Whether the rights recognized in 1884 embraced rights to timber, litigated here, has not been determined by the finders of fact. The case should be remanded for those findings. It is sufficient now only to determine that under the jurisdictional Act the Court of Claims is empowered to entertain the complaint by reason of the recognition afforded the Indian rights by the Act of 1884.
"For the first seventeen years of United States rule over Alaska, the aboriginal inhabitants, who constituted an overwhelming majority of its approximately thirty thousand souls, were as devoid of attention, or even mention, as was the population as a whole. They became, by virtue of the organic act of 1884, in one respect at least, a mildly privileged, or at least a less disadvantaged, group, as compared with subsequently arriving Americans."
"For the act provided 'that the Indians or other persons . . . shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation or now claimed by them.' The natives' right of occupancy was, in other words, affirmed, while all later arrivals had to await the slow evolution of the land laws for even the assurance of the right to possess land."
"'The terms under which such persons [the Indians or other persons],' continued the act, 'may acquire title to such lands is reserved for future legislation by Congress.'"
"Seventy years of future had passed by 1954, and the legislation by which the titles to Indians' lands could be acquired had not yet been enacted by Congress."

References: § 8
 § 27
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 8
 § 27
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1505
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 8
 § 8
 § 8
 v.