Opinion ID: 2812230
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Aboriginal Title and the Sovereign (1823)

Text: In Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. at 572, the Supreme Court first addressed Indian aboriginal right of occupancy and possession as against the sovereign. Plaintiffs in Johnson claimed land under a grant by the chiefs of the Illinois and Plankenshaw Nations, forcing the Court to ask “whether this title can be recognised in the Courts of the United States?” Id. In holding “that a private land sale of Indian land not consented to by the sovereign gave the purchaser no valid title against the sovereign,” Cohen, supra at 47, the Court explained the possessory right of occupancy held by the Indians: [T]he rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely -19- disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. [Indians] were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion; but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it. Johnson, 21 U.S. at 574. Thus, although “the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, they asserted the ultimate dominion to be in themselves; and claimed and exercised, as a consequence of this ultimate dominion, a power to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives.” Id. In other words, although the Indians had rights to the lands, fee title to the land resided in the sovereign. Most significantly for our purposes, however, is the Court’s holding that “[t]hese grants [by the sovereign] have been understood by all, to convey a title to the grantees, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy.” Id. (emphasis added). What that meant was clarified by later cases. C. Aboriginal Title Against States and Colonies (1832) Likely the second most important case in the development of Indian law is Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), where the land at issue was in the possession of the Cherokee Indians. Recognizing the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation and its relationship with the United States established through treaties, the Court held that Georgia could not -20- exercise jurisdiction over activities occurring on Indian land. Id. at 561. In so doing, the Court made clear that the idea of sovereign discovery and all that it entailed was not inconsistent with aboriginal title. The Court explained the sovereign right of discovery as follows: This principle, acknowledged by all Europeans, because it was the interest of all to acknowledge it, gave to the nation making the discovery, as its inevitable consequence, the sole right of acquiring the soil and making settlements out of it. It was an exclusive principle which shut out the right of competition among those who had agreed to it; not one which could annul the previous rights of those who had not agreed to it. It regulated the right given by discovery among the European discoverers; but could not affect the rights of those already in possession, either as aboriginal occupants, or as occupants by virtue of a discovery made before the memory of man. Worcester, 31 U.S. at 544 (emphasis added). The Court in Worcester explained that Georgia was chartered by Britain to enable its subjects to settle there but that the charter did not purport to grant title to the land in possession of the natives. Id. at 544-56. The general views of Great Britain, with regard to the Indians were detailed by Mr. Stuart, superintendent of Indian affairs in a speech delivered at Mobile, in presence of several persons of distinction, soon after the peace of 1763. Towards the conclusion he says, ‘lastly, I inform you that it is the king’s order to all his governors and subjects, to treat Indians with justice and humanity, and to forbear all encroachments on the territories allotted to them. Id. at 544-46. Worcester thus clarified the proposition suggested in Johnson v. M’Intosh that a grant to third parties by the sovereign of land in possession of the Indians and which they presently occupied did not extinguish their aboriginal title. -21- Cohen, supra at 49-50. D. The Scope and Transferability of Aboriginal Title (1835) In Mitchel v. United States, 34 U.S. 711, 716 (1835), the Court addressed an issue relating to land in Florida granted to private parties by Creek and Seminole Indians in 1804 and 1806. The private individuals claimed their title under deeds from the Indians that had been confirmed by Spain prior to Spain ceding Florida to the United States by treaty. In explaining “the nature and extent of Indian title to [the] lands,” id. at 745, the Court set forth how those rights were viewed by the British, who had governed Florida for twenty years from 1763 to 1783: One uniform rule seems to have prevailed from their first settlement, as appears by their laws; that friendly Indians were protected in the possession of the lands they occupied, and were considered as owning them by a perpetual right of possession in the tribe or nation inhabiting them, as their common property, from generation to generation, as the right of individuals located on particular spots. Subject to this right of possession, the ultimate fee was in the crown and its grantees, which could be granted by the crown or colonial legislatures while the lands remained in possession of the Indians, though possession could not be taken without their consent. .... The merits of this case do not make it necessary to inquire whether the Indians within the United States had any other rights of soil or jurisdiction; it is enough to consider it as a settled principle, that their right of occupancy is considered as sacred as the fee simple of the whites. Id. at 745-46 (emphases added). The Indian sale of property in Mitchel had occurred with the consent of Spain, the sovereign at the time. “What had been -22- conceded, by way of dictum, in Johnson v. M’Intosh, namely that Indian title included power to transfer as well as to occupy, is the core of the decision in the Mitchel case.” Cohen, supra at 50. Most importantly for our case, Mitchel established a significant point in the doctrine of aboriginal title by expressly rejecting the idea that “possession” extends only to improved lands. Indian possession or occupation was considered with reference to their habits and modes of life; their hunting grounds were as much in their actual possession as the cleared fields of the whites; and their rights to its exclusive enjoyment in their own way and from their own purposes were as much respected, until they abandoned them, made a cession to the government, or an authorized sale to individuals. Mitchel, 34 U.S. at 745 (emphasis added). See also Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Laws, § 18.01, at 1154-55 (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2012) [hereinafter Cohen’s Handbook]. This describes the very nature of aboriginal title – that it covers lands used by the Indians in their daily lives as hunters and gatherers as well as lands on which they actually resided. E. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848 As the above cases make clear, the nature of Indian title in the United States was established before the country acquired what would become much of the southwest and west of the United States. In 1848, “[t]he Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between the United States and Mexico, designated the Rio Grande as the Texas border, reduced the size of Mexico by more than half, and -23- doubled the territory of the United States, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.” Robert J. McCarthy, Executive Authority, Adaptive Treaty Interpretation, and the International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S.–Mexico, U. Denv. Water L. Rev. 197, 209 (2011). In Article VIII of the Treaty, the United States agreed to respect pre-existing property rights of all Mexican citizens, which included the Indians living within the territory covered by the Treaty. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, U.S.-Mex., Feb. 2, 1848, 9 Stat. 922, 928. The government concedes this much in its brief on appeal. Aple. Br. at 7-8. Read together with section twelve and thirteen of the Plan of Iguala, the Treaty of Cordova, the Mexican declaration of Independence, and the several acts of the first Mexican Congress implementing the Plan of Iguala, supra at 18-19, Article VIII of the Treaty between Mexico and the United States effectively recognized the then-existing property rights of the pueblo Indians. 9 Stat. at 928. See Cohen’s Handbook, § 4.0[9], at 311. F. Establishment of the office of Surveyor General of New Mexico, . . . and for other purposes, 10 Stat. 308 (July 22, 1854) In 1854, Congress established the office of the Surveyor General for New Mexico and ordered him “to ascertain the origin, nature, character, and extent of all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico;” and to make a full report on the validity of the claims that “originated before the cession of the territory to the United States by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, -24- . . . denoting the various grades of title, with his decision as to the validity or invalidity of each of the same under the laws, usages, and customs of the country before its cession to the United States.” § 8, 10 Stat. at 309. Further, the Surveyor General was tasked with making “a report in regard to all pueblos existing in the Territory, showing the extent and locality of each, stating the number of inhabitants in the said pueblos, respectively, and the nature of their titles to the land.” Id. The Jemez Pueblo acknowledges this in its Complaint. G. An Act to confirm certain Private Land Claims in the Territory of New Mexico, 12 Stat. 71 (June 21, 1860) The 1860 Act is the precursor to the establishment of Baca Location No. 1, the Baca ranch, which was created on lands the Jemez Pueblo claims in this case as part of its aboriginal land. In this Act, Congress settled a Mexican land grant dispute between the town of Las Vegas and the Baca heirs by allowing the town to retain title over the contested land and authorizing the Baca heirs “to select instead of the land claimed by them, an equal quantity of vacant land, not mineral, in the Territory of New Mexico, to be located by them in Square bodies, not exceeding five in number.” Id. § 6, 12 Stat. at 72. Section 6 further stated that “it shall be the duty of the Surveyor General of New Mexico, to make survey and location of the lands so selected by said heirs of Baca when thereunto required by them; Provided, however, That the right hereby granted to said heirs of Baca shall continue in force during three years from the passage of this act, and no longer.” -25- The Supreme Court explained in Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U.S. 312 (1898), how the Baca heirs gained title to one of the parcels of land they were authorized by the 1860 Act to select: Congress, in 1860, made a grant of a certain number of acres, authorized the grantees to select the land within three years anywhere in the territory of New Mexico, directed the surveyor general of that territory to make survey and location of the land selected, thus casting upon that officer the primary duty of deciding whether the land selected was such as the grantees might select. They selected this track [Baca Location No. 3]. Obeying the statute and the instructions issued by the land department, that officer approved the selection, and made the survey and location. The land department . . . finally directed him to close up the matter, to approve the field notes, survey, and plat, and notified the parties through him that such field notes, survey, and plat, together with the act of congress should constitute the evidence of title. All was done as directed. Congress made no provision for a patent, and the land department refused to issue one. All having been done that was prescribed by the statute, the title passed. Id. at 342-43 (emphasis added). Accordingly, once the Surveyor General performed the prescribed duties and the land office approved the selection, title passed to the Baca heirs. 10 In the 1860 Act, Congress also confirmed, on the recommendation of the Surveyor General, several other private land claims in the Territory of New Mexico arising under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. Notably, the Act declared in section 4 “[t]hat the foregoing confirmation shall only be construed as quit- 10 The Baca heirs gained title to Baca Location No. 1, the land involved in this case, in similar fashion. See United States v. Redondo Development Co., 254 F. 656, 657-58 (8th Cir. 1918). -26- claims or relinquishments, on the part of the United States, and shall not affect the adverse rights of any other person or persons whomsover.” 1860 Act, 12 Stat. at 71-72 (emphasis added). The effect of this statute and subsequent actions of the Surveyor General on the Jemez Pueblo’s aboriginal title are the central issues in this appeal with respect to whether the Jemez had a pre-1946 claim against the United States. H. Aboriginal Title and the Railroads (1886) After the 1860 Act, the Court continued to recognize the validity of aboriginal right of occupancy as against grants made by the United States in the absence of explicit extinguishment of Indian title. In Buttz v. Northern Pacific Railroad, 119 U.S. 55, 66-73 (1886), the Court applied the rules announced in Johnson and Worcester to a grant of land for the building of transcontinental railroads that needed access across Indian lands. The railroad claimed title to the land at issue under a grant made by Congress. The Court held that the Indians retained their aboriginal title notwithstanding the grant of fee title to someone else: The land in controversy, and other lands in Dakota, through which the Northern Pacific Railroad was to be constructed, was within what is known as Indian Country. At the time the act of July 2, 1864, was passed, the title of the Indian tribes was not extinguished. But that fact did not prevent the grant of congress from operating to pass the fee of the land to the company. The fee was in the United States. The Indians had merely a right of occupancy, – a right to use the land subject to dominion and contr[o]l of the government. The grant conveyed the fee subject to this right of occupancy. The railroad -27- company took the property with this incumbrance. The right of the Indians, it is true, could not be interfered with or determined except by the United States . . . The right of the United States to dispose of the fee of lands occupied by [the Indians] has always been recognized by this court from the foundation of the government. Id. at 66-67 (emphasis added). Buttz stands for the proposition that although grants by the United States of land in possession of the Indians conveys fee title, the grant does not impair aboriginal title, which the grantee must respect until aboriginal title has been extinguished by treaty, agreement, or other authorized actions of the Indians or Congress. Cohen, supra at 53. The Indian right of occupancy in 1864 that the Court referenced in Buttz had not been defined by treaty between the Indians and the United States. It was instead aboriginal land previously unrecognized by the United States. 11 Following Buttz, the Court in Cramer v. United States, 261 U.S. 219, 22425, 230 (1923), continued to protect and respect aboriginal title, holding that it was excluded from the grant in question. There the Act of July 25, 1866, 14 Stat. 239, “granted to the predecessor of the defendant company a series of oddnumbered sections of land, including those named, but excepted from the grant such lands as shall be found to have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by 11 The Court would later reaffirm that a tribe’s aboriginal title does not require an affirmative act of the sovereign for its continued viability. United States v. Santa Fe Pac. R.R. Co., 314 U.S. 339, 347 (1941). -28- homestead settlers, pre-empted or otherwise disposed of.” Cramer, 261 U.S. at 225 (internal quotation marks omitted). The question in Cramer concerned a land patent issued in 1904 by the United States to Central Pacific Railway, which included land covered by the 1866 Act. Id. at 224-35. In issuing the patent in 1904, the Department of Interior had assumed there was no reservation or other encumbrance that would prevent passing full and clear title to the grantee. Cohen, supra at 29. Cramer, the railroad’s assignee, contended the Department of the Interior had determined that the Indians had no rights to the land, and that the railroad had free and clear title and had leased the land from Cramer. Id. at 31. The Court rejected this argument, noting that the departmental action which had disregarded aboriginal rights was unfounded: “The fact that such right of [Indian] occupancy finds no recognition in any statute or other formal governmental action is not conclusive. The right, under the circumstances here disclosed, flows from settled governmental policy.” Cramer, 261 U.S. at 229. That policy, the Court explained, “to respect the Indian right of occupancy, which could only be interfered with or determined by the United States,” had “unquestionably” been the federal government’s policy “from the beginning.” Id. at 227. Read together, Buttz and Cramer stand for the proposition that aboriginal title is not extinguished by a railroad grant, surviving as either an encumbrance upon or an exception carved out of the grant. -29-