Opinion ID: 414037
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Effect of the 1854 Treaty Upon State Sovereignty Over Navigable Waters

Text: 28 The 1854 treaty between the United States and the Chippewa Indians reserved for the use of the Band a tract of land in central Wisconsin equal in extent to three townships. Nineteen years after the signing of that treaty, the United States and the Band prepared a list of land parcels--with a total dry acreage (about 69,120) roughly equivalent to that of three townships--included within the tract reserved to the Band, and three years later, the United States surveyed those land parcels and prepared a map designating the outer boundaries of the Band's reservation. Defendants claim that nineteen navigable lakes are wholly or partly within those outer boundaries, that the 1854 treaty conferred upon the Band the exclusive right to fish and hunt in the waters of those lakes, and that defendants therefore enjoy the power to restrict public fishing and hunting in those lakes. The State of course denies each of these claims. The district court found that though the outer boundaries of the reservation do encompass or intersect nineteen navigable lakes, and though the Band understood in 1854 that it would enjoy exclusive fishing and hunting rights in all waters within the outer boundaries of its reservation, the 1854 treaty did not confer such rights upon the Band, and the Band therefore lacks jurisdiction to restrict public fishing and hunting in navigable lakes. On appeal, defendants argue that the district court erred in holding that the fishing and hunting rights conferred upon the Band are not exclusive. 29 There are weighty reasons for presuming that the 1854 treaty did not confer upon the Band exclusive hunting and fishing rights in navigable Wisconsin lakes. In 1846, the United States authorized the people of Wisconsin to form a constitution and State government, for the purpose of being admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever.... Wisconsin Enabling Act of 1846, 9 Stat. 56. Pursuant to that grant of authority, the people of Wisconsin adopted a constitution providing for a republican form of government, and in 1848 Wisconsin became a state and a government elected by the people of Wisconsin was vested with all of the same powers possessed by the governments of the original thirteen states. Act of March 3, 1847, 9 Stat. 178. The power to regulate fishing and hunting in navigable lakes is one of those powers, Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 551-552, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 1251, 67 L.Ed.2d 493, and exercising that power so as to promote the happiness and prosperity of the people that elected it is one of the primary responsibilities of the Wisconsin government, Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 36 U.S. (11 Pet.) 420, 547, 9 L.Ed. 773. Because the people of Wisconsin have a compelling interest in seeing that powers reposed in their government are not surrendered to private, non-representative groups, and because the continued vitality of our Union ultimately depends upon the continued faith of the public in their elected governments, we are loath to adopt an interpretation of the 1854 treaty that would divest the State of this power. Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U.S. 65, 89, 46 S.Ct. 357, 361, 70 L.Ed. 838; Charles River Bridge, supra, 11 Pet. at 547, 9 L.Ed. 773. Thus regardless of whether the Chippewas believed in 1854 that their treaty with the United States conferred upon them the power to prohibit public fishing and hunting in navigable lakes, unless it plainly appears that the United States intended to divest Wisconsin of some of its sovereignty over non-Indians, we will not interpret the treaty as conferring that power upon the Chippewas. 12 30 The United States shares the interest of the Wisconsin citizenry in preserving state sovereignty. It undertook to admit Wisconsin into the Union on an equal footing with the original states. Presumably that undertaking reflects a belief that it is better to distribute power evenly than unevenly throughout a union of states and that a local government is better able than a national government to promote public welfare in matters of local concern. We know of no reason to suppose that the United States abandoned these beliefs in the six years between the date it admitted Wisconsin into the Union on an equal footing with the other states and the date the United States reserved for the use of a band of Chippewa Indians some sixty-nine thousand acres of dry land in Wisconsin. 31 Even assuming that the Constitution empowers the United States to effect a post-statehood conveyance of sovereignty over navigable state lakes to a band of Indians, we must therefore presume--absent evidence of a contrary intention definitely declared or otherwise made plain, or of a public exigency sufficient to warrant an inference of such an intention--that the United States did not exercise that power in 1854 when it signed a treaty with the Chippewa Indians. Montana, supra 450 U.S. at 552, 101 S.Ct. at 1251, quoting United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U.S. 49, 55, 46 S.Ct. 197, 199, 70 L.Ed. 465. Defendants argue that the importance to the Band of fisheries secure from the threat of public invasion was sufficiently great in 1854 to overcome this presumption. The district court disagreed and so do we. There is nothing in the language or history of the treaty to suggest that in 1854 the United States was more solicitous of Chippewa fishing and hunting rights in navigable waters than of state sovereignty. See Montana, supra 450 U.S. at 556, 101 S.Ct. at 1253; compare Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U.S. 620, 90 S.Ct. 1328, 25 L.Ed.2d 615 (treaty in which United States granted Indian tribe lands in fee simple and expressly pledged that no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the [tribe] ... and that no part of the land granted to them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State held to confer upon tribe sovereignty over navigable river given history of injustice suffered by tribe), construed in Montana, 450 U.S. at 555-556 n. 5, 101 S.Ct. at 1253 n. 5, and Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U.S. 78, 39 S.Ct. 40, 63 L.Ed. 138 (pre-statehood reservation until otherwise provided by law of group of islands for use of tribe that sustained itself by fishing in navigable waters adjoining those islands held to convey to tribe exclusive right to fish in those navigable waters). The Chippewas may have feared in 1854 that public fishing and hunting in navigable lakes within their reservation would one day threaten their fisheries--although that day has apparently not yet come, since defendants do not contend that public fishing and hunting pose an imminent threat to the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the Band. Montana, supra 450 U.S. at 566, 101 S.Ct. at 1258. And the Chippewas may have believed that when that day came they would possess the power to exclude the public from their fisheries. But neither the history of Chippewa life prior to 1854 nor the level of public fishing and hunting in waters near Chippewa settlements in 1854 was such as to charge the United States with knowledge of the Chippewas' understanding or to warrant the inference that the United States intended to convey such a power. See District Court Findings of Fact Nos. 40-58 at 524 F.Supp. 729-730. Nor can we say that in 1854 the United States was so intent upon preserving tribal life that had it foreseen that public fishing and hunting would one day threaten Chippewa fisheries it would have divested Wisconsin of some of its sovereignty. Section three of the 1854 treaty reserves to the President of the United States the power to allot parcels of reservation land to individual members of the Band, and in 1875, the President began to exercise that power. From the 1840's to the early 1900's the United States employed this practice--converting tribal property to individual property by allotting reservation lands to individual Indians--in an effort to civilize Indians and destroy their tribal ways of life. See F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law, ch. 11 (1942). 32 In sum, because the 1854 treaty did not expressly reserve exclusive rights in navigable waters (see Blake v. Arnett, 663 F.2d 906, 911 (9th Cir.1981)), Finding No. 83, 524 F.Supp. at 732, and because circumstances in 1854 were not such as to justify an inference that the United States intended to reserve such rights, we agree with Judge Doyle that the 1854 treaty did not convey to the Band sovereignty over navigable waters within its reservation and that exclusive sovereignty over them is in the State. 524 F.Supp. at 733-735.