Court Opinion

ID: 86295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:00:21+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:27.155269
License: Public Domain

43 U.S. 581 (____)
2 How. 581
SALLY LADIGA, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR,
v.
RICARD DE MARCUS ROLAND, AND PETER HIEFNER, DEFENDANTS.
Supreme Court of United States.

*588 Coxe, for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. Justice BALDWIN delivered the opinion of the court.
Both parties claim the land in controversy under the United States, in virtue of the treaty of Washington, made on the 24th March, 1832, between the United States and the chiefs of the Creek tribe of Indians. The decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama was against the title set up by the plaintiff, the case is therefore properly brought here under the 25th section of the Judiciary act of 1789. [The articles of the treaty are set forth in the statement of the reporter.] By an inspection of the second article it will be seen, that there are three distinct classes of selections to be made from the ceded lands, for the benefit of the Indians, after the lands are surveyed.
1. The United States engage to allow ninety principal chiefs to select one section each.
2. And every other head of a Creek family to select one half section each, which tracts shall be reserved from sale for their use for the term of five years, unless sooner disposed of by them. A census is to be taken of these persons, and the selections are to include the improvements of each person within his selection.
3. And twenty sections shall be selected under the direction of the President, for the orphan children of the Creeks, and divided, retained, or sold, for their benefit, as he may direct.
By article third these tracts may be sold by the persons selecting them, to any persons, as the President may direct, and a title shall be given by the United States, on the completion of the payment of the consideration. The fourth article stipulates, that at the end of five years, those entitled to these selections, who are desirous of remaining, shall receive patents; and by article fifth, all intruders shall be removed from these selections, for five years after the treaty, or until the same are conveyed to white persons. By article sixth, twenty-nine sections more may be located, and patents shall issue to the Creeks to whom the same may be assigned by the tribe. The fifteenth article makes the treaty obligatory on the parties, when ratified by the United States.
*589 The engagements of the treaty then are, to allow the chiefs and heads of families to select, for their own use, and reserve from sale for five years, the lands selected, that they may be sold and conveyed with the approbation of the President, and titles to be given by the United States, on payment of the purchase-money, and at the end of five years to give patents to all who are entitled to select and desirous of remaining, and to remove intruders from their selections, during that time, till they are conveyed to white persons.
The lands to be selected for the orphans are placed under the exclusive direction of the President, as to their location and disposition, and are not embraced in the third or fourth articles, which are confined to selections made by the Indians themselves,  these are expressly reserved from sale for five years, whereas the selections for orphans may be made and the lands sold at any time the President directs.
No authority is given to the President to direct the selection of the twenty sections for orphans, on or out of those made by the chiefs or the heads of families, or those sections which the tribes may assign under the sixth article; all the lands so selected or located are placed beyond the power of any officer, consistently with the obligatory engagements of the treaty on the United States. In directing the selections for orphans, the treaty did not intend, and cannot admit of the construction, that they might be made on lands selected according to the first part of the second article. The provisions of the treaty were progressive  that relating to orphans is entirely prospective. "It is a principle which has always been held sacred in the United States, that laws by which human action is to be regulated, look forward, not backward, and are never to be construed retrospectively, unless the language of the act should render that indispensable. No words are found in the act which renders this odious construction indispensable." 2 Peters, 434. The last clause in this article cannot have been intended to annul or impair a title which was valid under the first clause, and guarantied from intrusion under the fifth article for five years, unless sooner sold. S.P. 9 Wheat. 479.
Thus taking the treaty, and applying it to the evidence given at the trial, the instructions prayed of the court, and those given to the jury, it will not be difficult to decide in which party is the right of this case.
The plaintiff "proved substantially the following facts." [For the facts proved upon the trial, see the statement of the reporter.]
From the evidence it appears that the plaintiff claimed under the *590 first, and the defendants under the second clause of the second article of the treaty; that the plaintiff was the head of a family within the description, and had complied with all the requisites of the treaty, had selected the tract whereon her improvements were, where she resided before, at the time of the treaty, and until her expulsion therefrom by military force, on the frivolous pretence that she was not the head of a family, her children having married and left her, and none but her grandchildren lived with her. The defendants claimed under the second clause of the second article, relating to orphans' selections, by two patents dated in 1837, each for a quarter section, being the two halves of the half section selected by the plaintiff, which patents issued pursuant to a sale made by the agent appointed by the President, and affirmed by him in November, 1836, five months before the expiration of five years from the ratification of the treaty, and while the land was expressly reserved from sale. The defendants gave no other evidence of title.
This sale was a direct infraction of the solemn engagements of the United States in the treaty. Though approved by the President, if the plaintiff had previously selected it according to the stipulations of the treaty, in such case the sale was a nullity, for the want of any power in the treaty to make it. The President could give no such power, or authorize the officers of the land-office to issue patents on such sales; they are as void as the sales, by reason of their collision with the treaty. The only remaining inquiry is into the plaintiff's title. No other objection has been made to it, than the refusal of the locating agent or his deputy, to recognise her right, under the treaty, or to set apart the land so located by her opposite her name on the roll, as in other cases, solely for the reason he assigned. We cannot seriously discuss the question, whether a grandmother and her grandchildren compose a family, in the meaning of that word in the treaty, it must shock the common sense of all mankind to even doubt it. It is as incompatible with the good faith and honour of the United States, and as repugnant to the Indian character, to suppose that either party to the treaty could contemplate such a construction to their solemn compact, as to exclude such persons from its protection, and authorize any officer to force her from her home into the wilds of the far west. Such an exercise of power is not warranted by the compact, and the pretext on which it was exercised is wholly unsanctioned by any principle of law or justice.
Having a right by the treaty to select the land of her residence; *591 having selected, and been driven from it by lawless forces, her title remains unimpaired. She has not slept on her rights, but from 1832 to 1837 has made continuous and repeated applications to the government officers to assert her rights to said land, and through them to the government itself in 1837. She has never abandoned her claim, but has insisted on her rights under the treaty.
In our opinion, the plaintiff not only has a right to the land in question under the treaty, but one which it protects and guaranties against all the acts which have been done to her prejudice; and we are much gratified to find in the able and sound opinion of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, on the Cherokee treaty of 1819, and the Supreme Court of Alabama on this treaty, a train of reasoning and conclusions which we very much approve, and are perfectly in accordance with our opinion in this case. These cases are reported in 2 Yerger, 144, 432; 5 Yerger, 323; 5 Porter, Alabama Rep. 330, 427.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is therefore reversed.

ORDER.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record, from the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama, and was argued by counsel, on consideration whereof; It is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said Supreme Court of the state of Alabama in this cause be, and the same is hereby reversed with costs; and that this cause be, and the same is hereby remanded to the said Supreme Court of the state of Alabama, that further proceedings may be had therein in conformity to the opinion of this court, and as to law and justice shall appertain.