Opinion ID: 1565977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Sources of the Appellants' Right of Occupancy.

Text: As we have seen, the appellants base their right of possession to the lands in question upon the claim that ever since the year 1867, and from time immemorial prior thereto they and their predecessors and successors in lineal consanguinity    have been, and now are the aboriginal users and occupants, etc., of the land. In other words, they are claiming under original Indian title, on which the decision in the Tillamook case, supra, rested. The reference to the year 1867 is an allusion, of course, to the Treaty with Russia, proclaimed by the United States on June 20, 1867. 15 Stat. 539. An examination of that document, however, convinces us that whatever original Indian title the Tlingit Indians may have had under Russian rule was extinguished by the treaty. The opening sentence of Article II of the treaty is as follows: In the cession of territory and dominion made by the preceding article are included the right of property in all public lots and squares, vacant lands, and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices which are not private individual property.  (Emphasis supplied.) The closing sentence of Article VI reads as follows: The cession of territory and dominion herein made is hereby declared to be free and unencumbered by any reservations, privileges, franchises, grants, or possessions, by any associated companies, whether corporate or incorporate, Russian or any other, or by any parties, except merely private individual property holders; and the cession hereby made, conveys all the rights, franchises, and privileges now belonging to Russia in the said territory or dominion, and appurtenances thereto. (Emphasis supplied.) There is no possibility of errors in translation here, between the official English and French versions of the Alaska treaty. The expression private individual property is an exact equivalent of the French propriété privée individuelle, and the phrase except merely private individual property holders is the correct rendering of sauf simplement les propriétaires possédant des biens privés individuels. The United States Government paid an additional $200,000 for the inclusion of these reservations in the treaty. In Kinkead v. United States, 150 U.S. 483, 486, 14 S.Ct. 172, 173, 37 L.Ed. 1152, the following interesting sidelight on American history appears: It should be added in this connection, and as explanatory of the sixth article of the treaty, that on March 23, 1867, Mr. Seward, then secretary of state of the United States, addressed a letter to the Russian minister, in which he stated: `I must insist upon that clause in the sixth article of the draft which declares the cession to be free and unincumbered by any reservations, privileges, franchises, grants, or possessions by any associated companies, whether corporate or incorporate, Russian or any other, etc., and must regard it as an ultimatum. With the president's approval, however, I will add two hundred thousand dollars to the consideration money on that account.' To this letter the Russian minister made reply that he believed himself `authorized to accede literally to this request on the conditions indicated', in the note of the secretary. We agree with the appellee that by no stretch of the imagination can [original] Indian title be considered the equivalent of private individual property. In Cherokee Nation v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 294, 307, 23 S.Ct. 115, 120, 47 L.Ed. 183, the Court said: Whatever title the Indians have is in the tribe, and not in the individuals, although held by the tribe for the common use and equal benefit of all the members. See also Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665, 667, 32 S.Ct. 565, 56 L.Ed. 941. It seems quite clear, therefore, that whatever possession the Tlingit Indians had from time immemorial prior to the year 1867 was a tribal and not an individual right, and did not come within the classification of the excepted private individual property specified in the Russian treaty. Consequently, the Tlingits' original Indian title to the tidelands in question was extinguished by that state paper. Nevertheless, the appellants are not without a right of possession in the tidelands that the appellee has sought to have condemned. This right has been repeatedly accorded the Congressional recognition on which the Government was vainly insisting in the Tillamook case, supra, as a sine qua non of Indian title. That insistence has been reaffirmed by the appellee in the instant case. On May 17, 1884, there was approved An act providing a civil government for Alaska, 23 Stat. 24. A proviso in § 8 of that act sets forth:  Provided, That the Indians or other persons in said district [territory] 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. No such future legislation has been enacted by Congress. On June 6, 1900, in an Act making further provision for a civil government for Alaska, we find that § 27 contains the following opening language: The Indians or persons conducting schools or missions in the district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation,   . 31 Stat. 330, 48 U.S.C.A. § 356. On May 1, 1936, there was enacted a statute authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to designate as an Indian reservation any area of land which has been reserved for the use and occupancy of Indians or Eskimos by section 8 of the Act of May 17, 1884 [supra], etc. There again we find a saving proviso:  Provided further, That nothing herein contained shall affect any valid existing claim, location, or entry under the laws of the United States, whether for homestead, mineral, right-of-way, or other purpose whatsoever, or shall affect the rights of any such owner, claimant, locator, or entryman to the full use and enjoyment of the land so occupied. [Emphasis supplied.] 49 Stat. 1250, 1251, 48 U.S.C.A. § 358a. On May 31, 1938  only four years before the original petition in this suit was filed  Congress enacted the following brief statute: That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized, in his discretion, to withdraw and permanently reserve small tracts of not to exceed six hundred and forty acres each of the public domain in Alaska for schools, hospitals, and such other purposes as may be necessary in administering the affairs of the Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of Alaska: Provided, That such withdrawals shall be subject to any valid existing rights. [Emphasis supplied.] 52 Stat. 593, 48 U.S.C.A. § 353a. See also § 14 of 26 Stat. 1095, 1100. The Act of 1884 has been construed to constitute a Congressional guarantee to all persons in possession of lands in Alaska on the date of its enactment, that they were not to be disturbed in their occupancy. The rationale for this guarantee is lucidly expounded in Young v. Goldsteen, D.C. Alaska, 97 F. 303, 307, 308: The title to all these lands, mineral and nonmineral, remained in the federal government. Those making the improvements had a possessory right or title only to the premises occupied and improved by them. The mineral claimant had no greater or different right or title to the premises occupied by him than had the nonmineral claimant. This was the condition of land titles in Alaska when a form of civil government was extended to the territory in 1884. Realizing, apparently, the possibility that those who had risked so much in establishing their homes in this then well-nigh unknown country might not reap the fruits of their labor, and for the purpose of protecting them in their property rights, the congress passed the following law: [Here the court quoted the provision in the Act of 1884 that we have already set out.]    In our opinion, the language used is susceptible of but one construction; i. e. that congress guarantied to all persons in possession of lands in Alaska at that date the right ultimately to acquire a perfect title to the same. If anything less was intended, then the act is wholly meaningless. If congress meant only to guaranty to them undisturbed possession for the time being, reserving the right to ultimately pass such laws as would confiscate the property to the government, or give it to another, then the act is worse than a mockery. If the expression, `the terms under which such persons may acquire title,' means anything, it means that at some future date the congress will pass the needful legislation whereby their possession will ripen into perfect ownership. And until such legislation is enacted the `future legislation' is yet to be achieved. [Emphasis supplied.] See also Haltern v. Emmons, D.C., 46 F. 452, 456, affirmed, 159 U.S. 252, 15 S.Ct. 1039, 40 L.Ed. 142; Carroll v. Price, D.C., 81 F. 137, 139, 140; United States v. Cadzow, 5 Alaska 125, 133. From the foregoing statutes and decisions, it is clear that Congress, since 1884, has intended to protect, recognize and even guarantee the possessory rights of these Tlingit Indians. Such rights are compensable; for their holders are neither squatters nor outlaws.