Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/260/77/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:02:53+00:00

Document:
other acts and of a treaty, described the land only by whole townships, and by fractional townships "on the left bank of the Arkansas River," held that the deed was to be interpreted in conformity with the act, and that the act carried title to land in the riverbed out to the main channel. Pp. 260 U. S. 82, 260 U. S. 87.
2. Congress has power to make grants of lands below high water mark of navigable waters in a Territory, to carry out public purposes appropriate to the objects for which the United States holds the Territory. P. 260 U. S. 83. Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 152 U. S. 47.
3. This principle was not affected as to lands within the Louisiana Purchase by the purpose, declared in the treaty with France, that statehood should ultimately be conferred on the inhabitants of the territory purchased. P. 260 U. S. 86.
4. A navigable river is one which is used or is susceptible of being used in its ordinary condition as a highway for commerce over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the modes customary on water. P. 260 U. S. 86.
5. The evidence in this case affords no ground for rejecting the finding of the two courts below that the Arkansas River, along the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma, is not and never has been a navigable stream. P. 260 U. S. 86.
6. A grant of land in the bed of a nonnavigable river made by the United States while holding complete sovereignty over the locality including it cannot be divested by a retroactive rule or declaration of the state subsequently created out of that territory classifying the river as navigable. P. 260 U. S. 87.
7. Such a grant being attacked upon the ground that the river was navigable and its bed not subject to be granted by the United States, the question of navigability is not a local, but a federal, question. P. 260 U. S. 87. Wear v. Kansas, 245 U. S. 154, distinguished.
and that the meaning of the Cherokee deed is to be interpreted not as if its words stood alone, but in the light of the acts of Congress in pursuance of which it was made, and especially of the Act of 1872, under which the Osages took possession, and which was enough to vest in them good title to the land described therein without the deed of 1883. Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 224 U. S. 673; Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 175 U. S. 10; Francis v. Francis, 203 U. S. 233, 203 U. S. 237-238.
because it knew it was not navigable. This would be consistent with its general policy. Rev.Stats. § 2476; Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U. S. 574; Scott v. Lattig, 227 U. S. 229, 227 U. S. 242; Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272, 74 U. S. 289. If the Arkansas River is not navigable, then the title of the Osages as granted certainly included the bed of the river as far as the main channel, because the words of the grant expressly carries the title to that line.
It is true that, where the United States has not in any way provided otherwise, the ordinary incidents attaching to a title traced to a patent of the United States under the public land laws may be determined according to local rules, but this is subject to the qualification that the local rules do not impair the efficacy of the grant or the use and enjoyment of the property by the grantee. Thus, the right of the riparian owner under such grant may be limited by the law of the state either to high or low water mark or extended to the middle of the stream. Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 137 U. S. 669.
Some states have sought to retain title to the beds of streams by recognizing them as navigable when they are not actually so. It seems to be a convenient method of preserving their control. No one can object to it unless it is sought thereby to conclude one whose right to the bed of the river, granted and vesting before statehood, depends for its validity on nonnavigability of the stream in fact. In such a case, navigability vel non is not a local question. In Wear v. Kansas, 245 U. S. 154, upon which the plaintiffs in error rely, the patent of the United States under which Wear derived title was a grant, made before statehood, to land bordering on the Kansas River without restriction, reservation, or expansion. The state tribunal took judicial notice of the navigability of the river, refused to hear evidence thereon, and held that the patent to land on a navigable stream did not convey the bed of the river. The United States, by its unrestricted patent, was properly taken to have assented to its construction according to the local law. Whether the local law worked its purpose by conclusively determining the navigability of the stream, without regard to the fact, or by expressly denying a riparian title to the bed of a nonnavigable stream, was immaterial. In either view, the result there would have been the same. The case of Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243, is to be similarly distinguished, if, indeed it can be said, after the qualification of the opinion, 228 U. S. 228 U.S. 708, 228 U. S. 711, to require distinguishing.
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that, in order to provide said Osage tribe of Indians with a reservation and secure to them a sufficient quantity of land suitable for cultivation, the following-described tract of country, west of the established ninety-sixth meridian, in the Indian Territory be, and the same is hereby, set apart for and confirmed as their reservation, namely: bounded on the east by the ninety-sixth meridian, on the south and west by the north line of the Creek country and the main channel of the Arkansas River, and on the north by the south line of the State of Kansas: Provided, that the location as aforesaid shall be made under the provisions of article sixteen of the treaty of eighteen hundred and sixty-six, so far as the same may be applicable thereto: And provided further, that said Great and Little Osage tribe of Indians shall permit the settlement within the limits of said tract of land [of] the Kansas tribe of Indians, the lands so settled and occupied by said Kansas Indians, not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres for each member of said tribe, to be paid for by said Kansas tribe of Indians out of the proceeds of the sales of their lands in Kansas at a price not exceeding that paid by the Great and Little Osage Indians to the Cherokee Nation of Indians."

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