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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 11', 'Art. 6', 'Art. 3', '§ 16', '§ 29', '§ 15', '§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 28', '§ 6', '§ 6']

WOODWARD V. DE GRAFFENRIED, 238 U. S. 284 - Volume 238 - 1915 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 238 > WOODWARD V. DE GRAFFENRIED, 238 U. S. 284 (1915) > Full Text
This was an ejectment suit, brought by defendant in error in the District Court of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, to recover an undivided half interest in a tract of 160 acres of land situate in that county, formerly part of the domain of the Creek Nation in the Indian Territory. The tract was allotted to Agnes Hawes, a Creek freedwoman
A brief additional recital should preface a statement of the questions in controversy. The date of the selection
For we lay on one side, as quite untenable, the contention of defendant in error that the allotment was made not under the Curtis act, but under the Creek Agreement of February 1, 1899, which failed to become law. The principal ground of the contention is that conditions precedent to allotment, prescribed in terms or necessarily implied from § 11 of the Curtis Act, had not been performed in the Creek Nation, the rolls of citizenship not having been completed, no appraisement or classification of the lands having been made for determining what lands were susceptible of allotment and for equalizing the value of allotments,
The principal question is: by what law are the beneficiaries of the allotment and patent to be determined? Plaintiffs in error contend that, by the terms of § 11 of the Curtis Act, Agnes Hawes took an estate of inheritance, subject to the reservation of the minerals; that, at her death, this interest descended to her heirs, according to the Arkansas laws of descent, under which the husband was not an heir, and acquired no interest in the land by the
In Barnett v. Way (1911), 29 Okla. 780, a case precisely in point with the present, the allotment having been made under § 11 of the Curtis Act and the allottee
Considering the language of § 11, and the absence of provision for extinguishing the tribal title to allotted lands, in contrast with the provisions respecting title
It is, however, insisted by plaintiffs in error that, when the conditions existing at the time of the passage of this Act, and the objects Congress sought to attain by it, are fully understood and considered, § 11 bears a different import, and by its true construction confers upon the allottee at least an equitable title of inheritance in the lands set apart to him, saving the minerals. It is said that to confer upon the allottee a mere right of occupancy for life, to revert to the tribe and become a part of the public domain upon his decease, would have given to the Creek Indians less than they already had under their own laws, which conferred the right to enclose and cultivate lands of the tribe and to pass the improvements to their heirs at their death. It is insisted that at least the Curtis Act allottee took an inheritable right of occupancy
The history of the removal of the Muskogee or Creek Nation from their original homes to lands purchased and set apart for them by the government of the United States in the territory west of the Mississippi River does not differ greatly from that of the others of the Five Civilized Tribes rehearsed in recent decisions of this Court. Mullen v. United States, 224 U. S. 448; Goat v. United States, 224 U. S. 458, 224 U. S. 461. Pursuant to treaty provisions (Treaty of 1826, Art. 6, 7 Stat. 286; Treaty of 1832, Arts. 12 and 14, 7 Stat. 366; Treaty of 1833, Art. 3, 7 Stat. 417), the Creeks held their lands under letters patent issued by the President of the United States, dated August 11, 1852, vesting title in them as a tribe, to continue so long as they should exist as a nation and continue to occupy the country thereby assigned to them. McKellop's Comp. 1893, p. 9. These treaties and the
When Congress, in the Act of February 8, 1887, c. 119,
By § 16 of the same Act, provision was made for the appointment of a commission to enter into negotiations with the same tribes for the purpose of extinguishing the tribal titles, either by cession to the United States, or by allotment and division in severalty among the Indians, or by such other method as might be agreed upon between the several tribes and the United States with a view to the ultimate creation of a state or states of the Union to embrace the lands within the territory. This was the origin of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, familiarly known as the Dawes Commission. Its reports, issued annually thereafter, and communicated by the Secretary of the Interior to Congress for its information and guidance, give a complete and interesting history of the efforts made to further the policy of Congress -- efforts
The 1st Report contains a general explanation of conditions in the Territory, indicating (p. lxviii.) the complete
Even before the first report of the Commission, the attention of the Senate of the United States was especially drawn to affairs in the Indian Territory, and a select committee was sent there to make an investigation. They
We have set forth in the margin extracts from (a) the Senate Committee report just mentioned, (b) the House Committee report, and (c) the bill as enacted into law, the latter selected to show how its provisions were directed to the mischiefs pointed out in the reports. The italics are ours.{2}
The Curtis bill, as introduced in the House, did not contain the provisions of the present §§ 29 and 30 (30 Stat. 505, 514), ratifying, with amendments, and submitting
to the approval of the members of the respective tribes the Atoka agreement and the Creek agreement of September 27, 1897, then recently rejected by the Indians.
These were added as a Senate amendment, perhaps at the suggestion of the Dawes Commission, for it appears from their 5th Report, p. 1053, that they were in Washington
cooperating with Congress respecting this legislation. Section 11, however, in substantially its final form, was a part of the original bill. Sections 16, 17, and 23, also, but in somewhat different form, were in the bill as introduced.
It is evident that, at the time this law was enacted, Congress entertained serious doubts as to its constitutional power to interfere with the tribal lands of the Five Civilized
etc. This plan recognized the fact, referred to in the 1st Report of the Dawes Commission, that towns had been built up with the consent of the tribes, and valuable dwellings and other improvements constructed, without title and without means of acquiring title to the land. With the town lot question we have no present concern, except as § 15, by contrast, throws light upon § 11 and the
Goat v. United States, 224 U. S. 458, 224 U. S. 469, is not in conflict with the view above expressed. That case dealt with the right of Seminole freedmen to convey the lands allotted to them in severalty pursuant to the agreement confirmed by the Act of July 1, 1898 (c. 542, 30 Stat. 567), and turned upon the question whether the restriction upon alienation imposed by that agreement had been violated. It was argued that the interest of the allottee was not of such a character as to be susceptible of transfer;
In Welty v. Reed, 219 F. 864, 867, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in passing upon another question, expressed the view that a Curtis Act allottee had an inheritable estate or interest. This seems to have been based upon a mistaken view of what was decided in Goat v. United States.
We are next to consider the effect upon such an allotment of the subsequent adoption of the Original Creek Agreement (Act of March 1, 1901, c. 676, 31 Stat. 861) . But first it will be well to briefly review what had been
These selections were treated as "preliminary," and the allotments as "temporary." The difficulties to be overcome before complete and final allotment were great and unprecedented. (7th Report, p. 12.) For instance, the Creek citizenship rolls had not been completed at the time of the making of the Agnes Hawes allotment, nor were they, indeed, until some time in the year 1902. It is also to be noted that § 11 of the Curtis Act does not authorize allotments of 160 acres or any other specified area, but contemplates a valuation of the allottable lands so as to give to each citizen his fair and equal share in value. Evidently, the Secretary of the Interior and the Dawes Commission realized that to postpone the beginning of allotments until the roll of citizenship of any tribe should be "fully completed as provided by law," there being disputes without number respecting questions of citizenship, and a mass of litigation arising out of them, as witness Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445, 174 U. S. 467, which involved 166 appeals from the United States courts in the Indian Territory to this Court, taken under the Act of July 1, 1898, c. 545, 30 Stat. 571, 591, would have postponed indefinitely the inauguration of the allotment policy in the Indian Territory. The same result would have followed if allotment had been required to await a valuation, lot by lot, of all the allottable lands. But the immediate inauguration of the policy of allotment was urgently called for not only to break up the system of land monopolies, productive of so much injustice to the individual Indians, but also to educate the Indians in the benefits to be derived from separate occupancy and enjoyment of the land, and thereby to gain popular support for the agreements that
And so it is not surprising that the Secretary of the Interior, in establishing regulations for the selection of allotments under the Curtis Act, included a clause permitting each Creek citizen to take 160 acres. Extracts from these regulations are set forth in the margin.{3} They
Meanwhile the Dawes Commission, after the rejection by the Creeks of the agreement submitted pursuant
The sections especially bearing upon the present inquiry are §§ 6, 7, and 28.{4} These and the other provisions of the
Agreement respecting the allotment of lands show that it was the intention of the parties to accept and confirm the allotment work already performed by the Dawes Commission, with the same effect as if it had been done after the ratification of the agreement. This was to adopt what had been done in dividing the lands so far as it had been done consistently with the provisions of the Agreement, and thus save not only the time and expense of the
There were reasons for an express ratification of the allotment work previously done by the Commission. As already pointed out, the allotments had been tentatively and provisionally made in tracts of 160 acres, upon the order of the Secretary of the Interior, and without express authorization of acreage allotments in the Curtis Act; they had been made before completion of the membership rolls, and without appraisement of the lands, and, of course, they had been made without the consent of the tribe.
Even if this construction accorded with the strict letter of the Agreement, it savors too much of refinement to be accepted as an exposition of the true intent and meaning of an engagement made between the government of the United States and an Indian tribe. Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 175 U. S. 10; Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 224 U. S. 675. The adoption of the Creek laws of descent was a concession to the Indians, who were, of course, more familiar with their
etc. Although she had been placed in possession of an allotment, she had not in her lifetime "received" it, in the sense of the Agreement, for this contemplated ownership in fee, and she had received only a provisional surface right. Besides, while § 6 in confirming the allotment brought it under those provisions of the Agreement that contemplated a patent in fee, it was still only a partial dividend out of the property of the tribe. There remained something else contemplated by the Agreement and not received by Agnes Hawes in her lifetime -- namely, her "distributive share of
It is reasonable to suppose that the Indians, when giving approval to this agreement, would understand that the land which was thus to descend free from limitation included as well the land to which the limitation had never applied as that to which it had applied, but respecting which it had expired. And they would understand the provisions of § 28 (if limited as is here contended), to apply the laws of descent and distribution of the Creek Nation to allotments made under the peculiar circumstances
there provided for, in order to bring those allotments into conformity, as to descent and otherwise, with allotments of the general class, including allotments made prior to the ratification of the agreement, which by § 6 were "as to appraisement and all things else" to be governed by the provisions of the agreement. Such was the view expressed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in De Graffenreid v. Iowa Land & Trust Co. (1907), 20 Okl. 687, 709-711. In Bartlett v. Okla Oil Co., 218 F. 380, 385, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma passed upon the question of the descent of a Creek allotment held by a full-blood Indian of that tribe who died November 17, 1907, one day after the admission of Oklahoma as a state. It being in dispute whether the Creek law, the Arkansas law, or the Oklahoma law of descent and distribution applied, the court, in the course of a historical review of the legislation of Congress, said (p. 385) that, under the Original Creek Agreement, the descent of surplus lands was not especially provided for, and therefore was controlled by the laws of Arkansas, in force in the Indian Territory by virtue of the Act of June 7, 1897, and June 28, 1898 (the Curtis Act); but this was clearly obiter.
Under either of the views that we have expressed, the Agnes Hawes allotment, if it was uncontested, if it did not include public property, and was not otherwise affected by the Original Creek Agreement, was confirmed by § 6. That it was not among the excepted classes is sufficiently evidenced by the subsequent action of the Dawes Commission in awarding it to the heirs of Agnes. That which had been tentative and provisional then became, by force of the provisions of the Agreement, final and conclusive. The result was to vest a complete equitable title in her "heirs," to be determined according to the Creek laws of descent and distribution, and, upon familiar principles, their interest, being vested, was not devested by the subsequent
The further point is raised that defendant in error (plaintiff below) was barred from maintaining his present action by a decree dismissing a previous suit, brought by him prior to statehood in the United States Court for