Court Opinion

ID: 9628704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:29:51.464423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:40.182393
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(concurring in the dissent) — I agree with and have signed Judge Hunter’s dissenting opinion. As a pref*273ace to further comment, it should be noted that this case has nothing to do with protecting or preserving for the Indians any rights in land or personal property or fostering their management of business or tribal affairs. It involves only the claims of a right to fish in places where all others are forbidden.
Appellants assert the right under a treaty to violate the laws of a sovereign state, laws designed to preserve, protect and develop a great natural resource that contributes vastly to the economic and recreational welfare of millions of its citizens. Appellants claim powers which, if exercised in full, will inevitably destroy this resource in the Puyallup River.
I find no language in the Treaty of Medicine Creek (10 Stat. 1132) concluded December 26, 1854, by Isaac I. Stevens, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Territory of Washington, on behalf of the United States and the “chiefs, head-men, and delegates of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, Squawskin, S’Homamish, Stehchass, T’Peeksin, Squi-aitl, and Sa-heh-wamish tribes and bands of Indians,”9 warranting the conclusion that the Indians should be forever immune from the state’s game and fishery laws. The most cogent language of the treaty, that particular phraseology designed to prevent unfair and invidious discrimination against the Indians and which vouchsafed to them the right to hunt and fish, granted these very rights in common with all citizens of the territory. See Treaty with Nisqualli, Puyallup, Etc., 1854, art. 3, 2 Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties 496 (1902). As I would permit no discrimination against the descendants of the Puyallups, I would allow no discrimination in their favor either.
In my opinion, most of the decisional law written about Indian treaties, although intended to protect the American Indian in the rights to property and the pursuit of happiness, has had a contrary effect. Decisions relating to Indian treaties begin with the hope of protecting the Indian, and *274inevitably end by treating the Indians as aborigines, and in doing so not only have tended to degrade the Indian and perpetuate the stigma of second-class citizenship earlier surrounding him but blinded this country to the need for legislation which will genuinely rehabilitate our Indian citizens and enable them to play a full and active role in the affairs of this state and country in common with all citizens of whatever racial origin.
The majority decision fosters an illusion that somehow by regarding the Treaty of 1854 as a device to confer upon shareholder members in appellant, The Puyallup Tribe, Inc., special privileges, immunities and emoluments not shared equally with descendants of the white settlers of 1854 or the citizenry at large, the courts are righting a wrong long suffered by the Indians.
But while intending otherwise, the opinion discriminates in favor of the Indians, granting to a few of them special favors, privileges and immunities not claimed or shared by other Indians, and perpetuating the idea that a treaty with the natives in 1854 is a viable compact with their remote descendants. In holding thus, the decision again delays the day when some descendants of the Puyallups will achieve full responsibility as citizens. I would put an end to such an invidious and discriminatory concept, and read the treaty as it was written.
Next, on the question of tribal existence, I think the evidence establishes and the learned trial judge rightly found that appellant, The Puyallup Tribe, Inc., never acquired nor now has any rights under the treaty. I believe that the tribe or band which signed the Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854 has long since disappeared, its lands sold and descendants absorbed into the body politic and that the conclusion of the learned trial judge that
There is no presently existing Puyallup Tribe of Indians which succeeds in interest to the original Puyallup Indian Tribe which was signatory to the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
is well supported by both the history of the tribe and the *275evidence in the case. This finding and the judgment should be affirmed.

 2 Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties 495 (1902).