Opinion ID: 3217620
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Washington’s Duty under the Treaties

Text: The fishing clause of the Stevens Treaties guarantees to the Tribes a right to engage in off-reservation fishing. It provides, in its entirety: The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations, is further secured to said Indians, in common with all citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary houses for the purpose of curing, together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses on open and unclaimed lands: Provided, however, That they shall not take shell fish from any beds staked or cultivated by citizens. Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 674 (emphasis in original). Washington concedes that the clause guarantees to the Tribes the right to take up to fifty percent of the fish available for harvest, but it contends that the clause imposes no obligation on the State to ensure that any fish will, in fact, be available. In its brief to us, Washington denies any treaty-based duty to avoid blocking salmon-bearing streams: [T]he Tribes here argue for a treaty right that finds no basis in the plain language or historical interpretation of the treaties. On its UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON 25 face, the right of taking fish in common with all citizens does not include a right to prevent the State from making land use decisions that could incidentally impact fish. Rather, such an interpretation is contrary to the treaties’ principal purpose of opening up the region to settlement. Brief at 27–28. At oral argument, Washington even more forthrightly denied any treaty-based duty. Washington contended that it has the right, consistent with the Treaties, to block every salmon-bearing stream feeding into Puget Sound: The Court: Would the State have the right, consistent with the treaty, to dam every salmon stream into Puget Sound? Answer: Your honor, we would never and could never do that. . . . The Court: . . . I’m asking a different question. Would you have the right to do that under the treaty? Answer: Your honor, the treaty would not prohibit that[.] The Court: So, let me make sure I understand your answer. You’re saying, consistent with the treaties that Governor Stevens entered into with the Tribes, you could block every salmon stream in the Sound? 26 UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON Answer: Your honor, the treaties would not prohibit that[.] Oral Argument at 1:07–1:45, October 16, 2015. The State misconstrues the Treaties. We have long construed treaties between the United States and Indian tribes in favor of the Indians. Chief Justice Marshall wrote in the third case of the Marshall Trilogy, “The language used in treaties with the Indians should never be construed to their prejudice.” Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, 582 (1832). “If words be made use of which are susceptible of a more extended meaning than their plain import, as connected with the tenor of the treaty, they should be considered as used only in the latter sense.” Id. Negotiations for the Stevens Treaties were conducted in the Chinook language, a trading jargon of only about 300 words. Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 667 n.10. The Treaties were written in English, a language the Indians could neither read nor write. Because treaty negotiations with Indians were conducted by “representatives skilled in diplomacy,” because negotiators representing the United States were “assisted by . . . interpreter[s] employed by themselves,” because the treaties were “drawn up by [the negotiators] and in their own language,” and because the “only knowledge of the terms in which the treaty is framed is that imparted to [the Indians] by the interpreter employed by the United States,” a “treaty must . . . be construed, not according to the technical meaning of its words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.” Jones v. Meehan, 175 U.S. 1, 11 (1899). “[W]e will construe a treaty with the Indians as [they] understood it, and as justice and UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON 27 reason demand, in all cases where power is exerted by the strong over those to whom they owe care and protection, and counterpoise the inequality by the superior justice which looks only to the substance of the right, without regard to technical rules.” United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371, 380 (1905) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]e look beyond the written words to the larger context that frames the Treaty, including the history of the treaty, the negotiations, and the practical construction adopted by the parties.” Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172, 196 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has interpreted the Stevens Treaties on several occasions. In affirming Judge Boldt’s decision, the Court wrote: [I]t is the intention of the parties, and not solely that of the superior side, that must control any attempt to interpret the treaties. When Indians are involved, this Court has long given special meaning to this rule. It has held that the United States, as the party with the presumptively superior negotiating skills and superior knowledge of the language in which the treaty is recorded, has a responsibility to avoid taking advantage of the other side. “[T]he treaty must therefore be construed, not according to the technical meaning of its words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.” Jones v. Meehan, 175 U.S. 1, 11. This rule, in fact, has thrice been explicitly relied on by the Court in broadly interpreting these very treaties in the 28 UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON Indians’ favor. Tulee v. Washington, 315 U.S. 681 [1947]; Seufort Bros. Co. v. United States, 249 U.S. 194 [1919]; United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371 [1905]. See also Washington v. Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463, 484 [1979]. Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 675–76. Washington has a remarkably one-sided view of the Treaties. In its brief, Washington characterizes the “treaties’ principal purpose” as “opening up the region to settlement.” Brief at 29. Opening up the Northwest for white settlement was indeed the principal purpose of the United States. But it was most certainly not the principal purpose of the Indians. Their principal purpose was to secure a means of supporting themselves once the Treaties took effect. Salmon were a central concern. An adequate supply of salmon was “not much less necessary to the existence of the Indians than the atmosphere they breathed.” Winans, 198 U.S. at 381. Richard White, an expert on the history of the American West and Professor of American History at Stanford University, wrote in a declaration filed in the district court that, during the negotiations for the Point-No-Point Treaty, a Skokomish Indian worried aloud about “how they were to feed themselves once they ceded so much land to the whites.” Professor White wrote, to the same effect, that during negotiations at Neah Bay, Makah Indians “raised questions about the role that fisheries were to play in their future.” In response to these concerns, Governor Stevens repeatedly assured the Indians that there always would be an adequate supply of fish. Professor White wrote that Stevens told the Indians during negotiations for the Point Elliott UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON 29 Treaty, “I want that you shall not have simply food and drink now but that you may have them forever.” During negotiations for the Point-No-Point Treaty, Stevens said, “This paper is such as a man would give to his children and I will tell you why. This paper gives you a home. Does not a father give his children a home? . . . This paper secures your fish. Does not a father give food to his children?” Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 667 n.11 (ellipsis in original). The Indians did not understand the Treaties to promise that they would have access to their usual and accustomed fishing places, but with a qualification that would allow the government to diminish or destroy the fish runs. Governor Stevens did not make, and the Indians did not understand him to make, such a cynical and disingenuous promise. The Indians reasonably understood Governor Stevens to promise not only that they would have access to their usual and accustomed fishing places, but also that there would be fish sufficient to sustain them. They reasonably understood that they would have, in Stevens’ words, “food and drink . . . forever.” As the Supreme Court wrote in Fishing Vessels: Governor Stevens and his associates were well aware of the “sense” in which the Indians were likely to view assurances regarding their fishing rights. During the negotiations, the vital importance of the fish to the Indians was repeatedly emphasized by both sides, and the Governor’s promises that the treaties would protect that source of food and commerce were crucial in obtaining the Indians’ assent. It is absolutely clear, as Governor Stevens himself said, that neither he nor the Indians intended that the latter should be excluded 30 UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON from their ancient fisheries, and it is accordingly inconceivable that either party deliberately agreed to authorize future settlers to crowd the Indians out of any meaningful use of their accustomed places to fish. Id. at 676–77 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphases added). Even if Governor Stevens had not explicitly promised that “this paper secures your fish,” and that there would be food “forever,” we would infer such a promise. In Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), the treaty creating the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana did not include an explicit reservation of water for use on the reserved lands, but the Supreme Court inferred a reservation of water sufficient to support the tribe. The purpose of the treaty was to reserve land on which the Indians could become farmers. Without a reservation of water, the “lands were arid, and . . . practically valueless.” Id. at 576. “[B]etween two inferences, one of which would support the purpose of the agreement and the other impair or defeat it,” the Court chose the former. Id. at 577. Similarly, in United States v. Adair, 723 F.2d 1394 (9th Cir. 1983), the Klamath Tribe in Oregon had entered into an 1854 treaty under which it relinquished 12 million acres, reserving for itself approximately 800,000 acres. The treaty promised that the tribe would have the right to “hunt, fish, and gather on their reservation,” id. at 1398, but contained no explicit reservation of water rights. A prime hunting and fishing area on the reservation was the Klamath Marsh, whose suitability for hunting and fishing depended on a flow of water from the Williamson River. A primary purpose of UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON 31 the treaty was to “secure to the Tribe a continuation of its traditional hunting and fishing” way of living. Id. at 1409. Because game and fish at the Klamath Marsh depended on a continual flow of water, the treaty’s purpose would have been defeated without that flow. In order to “support the purpose of the agreement,” Winters, 207 U.S. at 577, we inferred a promise of water sufficient to ensure an adequate supply of game and fish. Adair, 723 F.2d at 1411. Thus, even if Governor Stevens had made no explicit promise, we would infer, as in Winters and Adair, a promise to “support the purpose” of the Treaties. That is, even in the absence of an explicit promise, we would infer a promise that the number of fish would always be sufficient to provide a “moderate living” to the Tribes. Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 686. Just as the land on the Belknap Reservation would have been worthless without water to irrigate the arid land, and just as the right to hunt and fish on the Klamath Marsh would have been worthless without water to provide habitat for game and fish, the Tribes’ right of access to their usual and accustomed fishing places would be worthless without harvestable fish. In Washington III, we vacated the district court’s declaration of a broad and undifferentiated obligation to prevent environmental degradation. We did not dispute that the State had environmental obligations, but, in the exercise of discretion under the Declaratory Judgment Act, we declined to sustain the sweeping declaratory judgment issued by the district court. We wrote, “The legal standards that will govern the State’s precise obligations and duties under the treaty with respect to the myriad State actions that may affect the environment of the treaty area will depend for their definition and articulation upon concrete facts which underlie 32 UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON a dispute in a particular case.” Washington III, 759 F.2d at 1357. We concluded: The State of Washington is bound by the treaty. If the State acts for the primary purpose or object of affecting or regulating the fish supply or catch in noncompliance with the treaty as interpreted by past decisions, it will be subject to immediate correction and remedial action by the courts. In other instances, the measure of the State’s obligation will depend for its precise legal formulation on all of the facts presented by a particular dispute. Id. There is no allegation in this case that in building and maintaining its barrier culverts the State has acted “for the primary purpose or object of affecting or regulating the fish supply or catch in noncompliance with the treaty.” The consequence of building and maintaining the barrier culverts has been to diminish the supply of fish, but this consequence was not the State’s “primary purpose or object.” The “measure of the State’s obligation” therefore depends “on all the facts presented” in the “particular dispute” now before us. The facts presented in the district court establish that Washington has acted affirmatively to build and maintain barrier culverts under its roads. The State’s barrier culverts within the Case Area block approximately 1,000 linear miles of streams suitable for salmon habitat, comprising almost 5 million square meters. If these culverts were replaced or modified to allow free passage of fish, several hundred UNITED STATES V. WASHINGTON 33 thousand additional mature salmon would be produced every year. Many of these mature salmon would be available to the Tribes for harvest. Salmon now available for harvest are not sufficient to provide a “moderate living” to the Tribes. Fishing Vessel, 443 U.S. at 686. The district court found that “[t]he reduced abundance of salmon and the consequent reduction in tribal harvests has damaged tribal economies, has left individual tribal members unable to earn a living by fishing, and has caused cultural and social harm to the Tribes in addition to the economic harm.” The court found, further, that “[m]any members of the Tribes would engage in more commercial and subsistence salmon fisheries if more fish were available.” We therefore conclude that in building and maintaining barrier culverts within the Case Area, Washington has violated, and is continuing to violate, its obligation to the Tribes under the Treaties.