Court Opinion

ID: 9419612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:27.21732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.396737
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting.
It is a well-settled rule that in the interpretation of Indian treaties'all ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the Indians. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 582; Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564, 576; Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363, 367. While this principle does not justify ignoring the plain meaning of words in order to prevent what appears to be an injustice to the Indians, it does mean that a court is bound to give to doubtful expressions that meaning least prejudicial to the interests of the Indians, giving full weight to the conditions under which the treaty was drawn. The application of this principle to the facts of this case makes manifest the error of the Court of Claims.
The issue here centers about the meaning of the Box Elder Treaty of July 30, 1863, 13 Stat. 663, entered into between the United States and the Northwestern Bands of Shoshone Indians. Did the United States by that treaty acknowledge or recognize the claim of the Indians to the land in question so as to make it a claim “arising under or growing out of” the treaty for purposes of the *363jurisdictional act of February 28, 1929, 46 Stat. 1407? An affirmative answer to this question is dictated by both the treaty provisions and the circumstances surrounding the making of the treaty.
1. Events preceding the Box Elder Treaty. The great westward surge of the white men from 1849 to 1863 through the country claimed by the various Shoshone tribes aroused resentment and hostility among the Indians. Game was driven away and vegetation destroyed, forcing the Indians to steal or starve. Telegraph and overland daily mail lines were established through their territory in complete disregard of any rights they might have. The Government did little or nothing to supply the Indians with food or supplies during this period. White emigrants and the Government were caused considerable trouble by depredations and warlike acts of these oppressed Indians. Some agreement whereby white emigrants could travel and the Government could maintain a communication system through the Shoshone area was imperative.
Little was done before 1861, when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommended that a treaty be negotiated with the Shoshone Indians which would grant them annuities “in consideration of a right-of-way across their country.” In the same year the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Utah Territory also recommended the negotiation of a treaty, stating that the Shoshones “express their willingness to cede to the United States all the lands they claim in this territory,” with certain reservations.
In February, 1862, the Secretary of the Interior in a letter to the chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs acknowledged that the lands were “owned by the Indians” but reported that little was fit for cultivation and would probably not be “required for settlement for many years.” He thus did not recommend the purchase of the land. In light of this letter, the House Committee on Indian Affairs recommended to Congress that it au*364thorize the negotiation of a treaty for passageways over the land claimed by the Shoshones and not try to purchase the land.
Accordingly on July 5, 1862, Congress authorized the appointment of a treaty commission to negotiate such a treaty. 12 Stat. 512, 529. On July 22 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs instructed the treaty commissioners who had been appointed that the Government did not have sufficient knowledge to state definitely the boundaries of the country inhabited and claimed by the Shoshones but that it was understood that they inhabited “the country in the northern part of Utah and eastern portion of Washington Territories, through which lies the route of the overland mail, and the emigrant route through Utah and into Washington Territory and it is mainly to secure the safety of the travel along these routes that a treaty is desirable.” He further told them that it was not expected that the treaty would be negotiated “with a view to the extinguishment of the Indian title to the land.” They were told that the United States’ assurances of amicable relations and the contemplated payment of $20,000. in annuities should enable them to procure from the Indians an agreement for the security of the overland mail and emigrant routes, in addition to a “definite acknowledgment as well of the boundaries of the entire country they claim, as of the limits within which they will confine themselves.”
Thus prior to the actual negotiation of the treaty, the United States recognized that the Shoshone tribes claimed and inhabited certain territory, the exact boundaries of which were uncertain. The fact that the United States thought it necessary to make a treaty concerning rights of way and the fact that the United States expressly did not desire to negotiate “with a view to the extinguishment of the Indian title to the land” strongly indicate that the United States considered the Indians as the owners of this *365ill-defined area of land. The securing of rights of way, which was the main purpose of the treaty, would have been a needless formality had title to the underlying land been thought to be in the name of the United States. And the securing of an acknowledgment of the boundaries of the land claimed by the Shoshones, which was a subsidiary purpose of the treaty, would likewise have been unnecessary if the United States considered itself the owner of all the land. The stage was thus set for a delineation of the Shoshone land to which the United States was prepared to acknowledge Indian title.
2. The negotiations for and the contents of the Box Elder Treaty. The treaty commissioners found it impossible to assemble all the Shoshone tribes at one time. They thus negotiated five separate treaties with the five Shoshone Nations. They met first with the Eastern Shoshones at Ft. Bridger, Wyoming, where they negotiated the treaty of July 2, 1863, 18 Stat. 685. This treaty pledged peace between the United States and the Indians and pledged the United States to pay annual annuities. The Shoshones in turn agreed that routes of travel through “Shoshone country” should remain forever free and safe for the use of the United States and its emigrants and travellers. They also agreed that the United States might establish military agricultural establishments and military posts along said routes, maintain ferries over rivers, erect houses and settlements wherever necessary for the comfort of the travellers, operate and maintain existing telegraph and overland stage coach lines, and operate a transcontinental railway “through any portion of the country claimed by” the Shoshones. The treaty further set forth a description of “the Shoshonee country, as defined and described by said nation,” leaving the western boundary undefined since there were no Shoshones present from that area.
On July 30,1863, the commissioners met with the Northwestern Bands of Shoshone Indians at Box Elder, Utah. *366The resulting treaty also stipulated for peace and friendship and then incorporated by reference all the pertinent provisions of the Ft. Bridger Treaty. The Northwestern Bands thus granted the same rights of way and easements over their lands as the Eastern Bands had granted. The Box Elder Treaty did not purport to describe all the land of the Northwestern Bands, but only the “country claimed by Pokatello [one of their chiefs] for himself and his people.” This area was described as being bounded on the west by the Raft River and on the east by the Porteneuf Mountains.
Similar treaties were entered into with the Western Shoshones on October 1, 1863, the Shoshonee-Goship Bands on October 12, 1863, and the Mixed Bands of Shoshone and Bannock Indians on October 14,1863. All these treaties were substantially the same insofar as the granting of rights of way and easements were concerned. And each of them set forth “the boundaries of the country claimed and occupied by said bands.”
Thus by these five treaties the United States secured (a) freedom of travel and communication through the Shoshone country and (b) definite acknowledgment of the areas claimed by the Shoshones. While the Box Elder Treaty did not define the boundaries of the Northwestern Shoshone lands completely, reference to and collocation of the territorial descriptions in the other four treaties, as well as reference to the map prepared at the time by the chairman of the treaty commission, supply the territorial boundaries of these lands.
The very acceptance in the Box Elder Treaty of these rights of way and easements constituted a recognition and acknowledgment by the United States that the Northwestern Bands had title to the land claimed. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 556; Fort Berthold Indians v. United States, 71 Ct. Cls. 308, 332. Such recognition and acknowledgment need not be indicated by any particular word or phrase. They may be implied as well as expressed. *367That is the case here. The Box Elder Treaty and the four other treaties would have been meaningless had the United States not thereby recognized the Indian title to the land claimed. Without such title, the Indians would have lacked power to bargain concerning the right to travel and communicate over the land. Recognition of this power to bargain and acceptance of the fruits of that bargaining implied recognition of the underlying Indian title to the land. Otherwise there would have been no reason for the United States bothering to negotiate. Unilateral assertion of rights would have been resorted to had the United States not recognized Indian title to these lands. This is true whether the Indians held title based on aboriginal possession or whether they held lands specifically set aside for them. It is likewise immaterial that the main purpose of the treaties was to secure rights in the land rather than to acknowledge or secure title. The securing of those rights necessarily presupposes Indian title and necessarily recognizes such title.
Thus by its action in negotiating for and securing rights of passage and communication, the United States indicated its recognition and acknowledgment of Indian title to the land. The descriptions of the lands claimed by the various tribes were inserted merely to give the United States knowledge of the precise boundaries to the land held by the Indians. The fact that these treaties and the Box Elder Treaty in particular speak in terms of land “claimed” by the Indians does not negate recognition of title to the land so claimed. In the context of these treaties and in light of the ignorance of the Indians of legal niceties, the term “claim” need not be taken to mean bare assertion to title. It must be remembered that these Indians held title by aboriginal possession and that the United States was in no position to bargain as to the scope of the land so held. A bona fide Indian claim of this type is synonymous with ownership unless it conflicts with some other ownership or unless such an Indian title is' *368unrecognized in law. Here, however, the United States did recognize this type of ownership and was anxious merely to ascertain the scope of the land so claimed or owned. The placing of these descriptions in a bilateral treaty is at least consistent with the conclusion that the United States recognized title to the extent of the lands claimed. And under the rule that ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the Indians, we must adopt that conclusion.
3. Events subsequent to the Box Elder Treaty. Any doubt as to whether the United States by these treaties recognized and acknowledged Indian title to the land claimed is removed by actions and statements of the Government subsequent to the making of these treaties.
The Senate ratified each of the treaties. Tó four of them, including the Box Elder Treaty, the Senate added an amendment providing that nothing in the treaty should be construed to admit “any other or greater title or interest in the lands embraced within the territories described in said treaty in said tribes or bands of Indians than existed in them upon the acquisition of said territories from Mexico by the laws thereof.” See 13 Stat. 664. Whatever may have been the complexities of the Mexican cession title' situation as described in the opinion of this Court, the Senate by this amendment clearly indicated that it understood each treaty to constitute a recognition of Indian title to the land claimed, at least as to lands outside the Mexican cession. Had the Senate been under the impression that no title rights were involved in the treaties it would have been meaningless to add this amendment. Resolving any doubts on this score in favor of the Indians compels us to interpret this amendment as another recognition of Indian title.
In 1863 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommended that further treaties with the Shoshones be nego*369tiated to extinguish their title to the soil. And Congress in 1865 authorized the President to enter into treaties with Indians in the Utah Territory for the surrender to the United States of their possessory right to all agricultural and mineral land and for their segregation on reservations. 13 Stat. 432. Accordingly a treaty was made with the Eastern Shoshones in 1868 whereby they gave up the territory claimed by them in the Ft. Bridger Treaty in exchange for other lands. 15 Stat. 673. Here again is clear proof that the United States considered title to the land to belong to the Indians, making even more compelling the conclusion that the 1863 treaties constituted a necessary recognition of that title.
And as late as 1934 the Secretary of the Interior admitted that the territory of the Shoshones “was recognized by the United States as belonging to the various bands of Shoshone Indians” by the 1863 treaties and that the “Government recognized all the land as belonging to the Northwestern bands of Shoshones.” Such statements are more than justified by the history and contents of the treaties.
One final matter remains. It is said that any money recovered by the Indians in this suit would have to be deposited in the Treasury of the United States, subject to appropriation by Congress for their benefit, and that the only possible cash payment involves attorney fees. That may be true. But it does not justify ignoring the rights of the Shoshone Indians recognized under solemn treaties entered into with the United States. It does not command us to overthrow the moral obligation of the United States to fulfill its treaty obligations. And it does not warrant the application of narrow principles of construction to the injury of the Indians’ interests. If Congress desires to place in the Treasury any money that might be recovered by the Indians in this suit that is the business of Congress, not ours. Our function here is at an end *370when we have determined if the Northwestern Bands have any claim “arising under or growing out of” the Box Elder Treaty. Because I believe they have such a claim I would reverse the judgment below.
Mb. Justice Frankfurter and Mb. Justice Douglas concur in this opinion.