Court Opinion

ID: 9426746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:49.64204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:02.880156
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart join, dissenting.
The Court holds today that in 1904, 1907, and 1910, Congress broke solemn promises it had made to the Rosebud *616Sioux Tribe and took from them, without any guarantee of compensation, three-quarters of their reservation. Although it was suggested at argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 18-20, that the only consequence of such a holding would be to preclude the Tribe from continuing to exercise the jurisdiction granted to it by its approved constitution and bylaws,1 in fact much more is at stake. This case involves not just the rights of the Tribe, but also the rights of approximately 2,000 Indians living in the disputed area, and the right of the United States to continue to administer the disputed area as part of the Rosebud Reservation.2 See Part IV, infra. In addition, the *617ramifications of today’s decision may extend to a large number of other reservations throughout the Nation. See ibid. I therefore feel constrained to explain at length why the decision is, in my view, wholly unjustifiable.
Until today, the effect on reservation boundaries of Acts disposing of surplus reservation land was well settled. The general rule, entitled to “the broadest possible scope,” is that in interpreting these Acts “legal ambiguities are resolved to the benefit of the Indians.” DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 447 (1975). Congressional intent therefore must be “clear” before this Court will find that a reservation established by Congress (or the Executive) was disestablished. Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U. S. 481, 505 (1973). Applying these principles, the Court has found disestablishment when Congress ratified a treaty by which Indians agreed to sell all interest in part or all of a reservation, DeCoteau v. District County Court, supra, or when Congress employed express words of termination, Mattz v. Arnett, supra, at 504 n. 22 (dictum). But when, as here, Congress merely “opened” a reservation—that is, made reservation lands available to non-Indians and acted as a sales agent on behalf of the Indians—the reservation boundaries have been held to be unaffected. Mattz v. Arnett, supra; Seymour v. Superintendent, 368 U. S. 351 (1962). In DeCoteau, the Court clearly distinguished the two situations, observing:
“[A purchase-and-sale Act] is not a unilateral action by Congress but the ratification of a previously negotiated agreement, to which a tribal majority consented. [It] does not merely open lands to settlement; it also appropriates and vests in the tribe a sum certain . . . in payment for the express cession and relinquishment of 'all’ of the *618tribe’s 'claim, right, title, and interest,’ in the unallotted lands. The statute in Mattz, by contrast, benefited the tribe only indirectly, by establishing a fund dependent on uncertain future sales of its land to settlers.” 420 U. S., at 448.
Today, however, the Court obliterates this distinction, and, by holding against the Tribe when the evidence concerning congressional intent is palpably ambiguous, erodes the general principles for interpreting Indian statutes.
I
What is perhaps most striking about the Rosebud Acts, in light of the interpretation the Court places upon them, is the absence of any express provision disestablishing the Reservation. As we observed in Mattz: "Congress has used clear language of express termination when that result is desired.” 412 U. S., at 504 n. 22. We cited three examples in Mattz: 15 Stat. 221, which stated that “the Smith River reservation is hereby discontinued”; 27 Stat. 63, which stated that “a portion of the Colville Indian Reservation . . . is hereby, vacated and restored to the public domain”; and 33 Stat. 218, enacted just two days before the first of the Rosebud Acts, which stated that “the reservation lines of the said Ponca and Otoe and Missouria Indian reservations . . . are hereby abolished,” The very Act that created the Rosebud Reservation provides yet another example, for in that Act Congress expressly “restored to the public domain” part of the Great Sioux Reservation. Act of Mar. 2, 1889, § 21, 25 Stat. 896. And other examples abound.3
The Acts in question contain no similar language. The Act of April 23, 1904, 33 Stat. 254, is a peculiarly drafted statute. In substance, it is no different from the *619statutes considered in Mattz and Seymour; it opens lands on the Reservation to white settlers, guarantees to the Indians the proceeds from the sale of the lands, but does not commit the United States to purchasing the land.4 In form, however, the Act “amended and modified” and then “ratified” the 1901 Agreement between Inspector McLaughlin and the Rosebud Sioux in which the Tribe agreed to sell the lands in question to the United States for a lump sum; this Agreement had been rejected by the Congress in 1902. The “amendments” which Congress unilaterally inserted obviously were substantial, since they transformed the transaction from a DeCoteau-type purchase to a Mattz-type “opening.” But because the ratification format was used, the 1904 Act contains language from the 1901 Agreement which provided that the “Indians belonging on the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota, for the consideration hereinafter named, do hereby cede, surrender, grant, and convey to the United States all their claim, right, title, and interest” in the unallotted lands in Gregory County.
In DeCoteau we stated that this language, when contained in an agreement approved by the Indians and ratified by Congress, is “precisely suited,” 420 U. S., at 445, to terminating a reservation. But I cannot agree with the Court, ante, at 597, that the language is equally well suited to disestablish the Reservation here. Its usage may simply mean that Congress found that working from an earlier document—in this case the 1901 Agreement—was easier than drafting a new law. Whereas in DeCoteau the key phrase expressed the Indians’ understanding of what they were surrendering and the Government’s understanding of what it was acquiring, here the Indians had not agreed to this transaction and the Government disclaimed any intent to purchase anything other than school *620lands, see n. 4, supra. Indeed, as the Court concedes, ante, at 597, as a matter of English usage the words “cede, surrender, grant, and convey,” make no sense in the context of an “agreement” to which the seller has not assented. Thus the Court ultimately rests its decision on an asserted ability to “ ‘see what [Congress is] driving at,'” even though Congress has “ ‘not said it.'” Ibid.
The 1907 and 1910 Acts are far simpler for present purposes. They contain neither words of cession nor words of termination. They simply “authorized' and directed” the Secretary of the Interior “to sell or dispose of” the specified lands “under the general provisions of the homestead and town-site laws of the United States.” Act of Mar. 2, 1907, §§ 1, 2, 34 Stat. 1230; Act of May 30, 1910, §§ 1, 2, c. 260, 36 Stat. 448. These statutes are virtually identical to the law construed in Seymour v. Superintendent, which also “authorized and directed” the Secretary “to sell or dispose of” specified lands “under the provisions of the homestead laws.” Act of Mar. 22, 1906, §§ 1, 3, c. 1126, 34 Stat. 80-81. They are quite similar to the Act at issue in Mattz which “declared” specified lands “to be subject to settlement, entry, and purchase under the laws of the United States granting homestead rights and authorizing the sale of mineral, stone, and timber lands.” Act of June 17, 1892, 27 Stat. 52. They bear no resemblance, however, to the statutes cited in Mattz as examples of “clear language of express termination.”
II
Since congressional intent must be unambiguous before we can conclude that Congress terminated part of an Indian reservation, the absence of any express provision to this effect in the Rosebud Acts strongly militates against the interpretation the Court places on those Acts. But I need not rely on congressional silence alone—eloquent as it may be—to reject the Court’s interpretation. For both the text of the *621Acts and the circumstances surrounding their enactment affirmatively point to the opposite conclusion.
A
The text of the Acts provides numerous indications that Congress did not intend to remove the opened areas from the Reservation. First, the Acts granted the Indians a variety of rights in those areas. All three Acts, for example, permitted Indians with allotments in the counties to be opened to retain their allotments,5 and the 1907 and 1910 Acts also allowed certain Indians without allotments in these counties to secure allotments there.6 All three Acts also granted the Indians a beneficial interest in all the opened lands, since the Acts simply made the United States “trustee for [the] Indians to dispose of said lands.”7 And the 1904 and 1910 *622Acts authorized the Executive, before opening the counties to settlers, to reserve some lands for Indian schools, religious missions, and service agencies.8 Of course, it is possible that Congress intended to remove the opened counties from the Reservation while leaving the Indians with a host of rights in the counties. But this interpretation of the statutes is surely strained, especially since nothing in the legislative history indicates that such an anomalous result was desired. Thus, it is far more sensible to view these grants to the Indians as evidence that Congress did not intend to terminate the Reservation immediately.
This interpretation is supported by other provisions in the Acts as well. In the 1907 and 1910 Acts, for example, Congress directed that payments received from sale of the lands to be opened were to be deposited “to the credit of the Indians belonging and having tribal rights on the Rosebud Reservation.” 9 If the Rosebud Acts also removed the opened counties from the Reservation, then the members of the Tribe living in Gregory County, opened in 1904, were not entitled to share in the proceeds of the 1907 or 1910 sales, and the members of the Tribe living in Tripp County, opened by the Act of 1907, were not entitled to the 1910 proceeds at the very least.10 Again, it is possible that Congress intended *623this result. But, absent contrary evidence, it is far more reasonable to assume that Congress meant for all members of the Tribe living on the original Reservation to profit from the sales, since prior to the Rosebud Acts they all had equal rights in the opened lands. Thus, the manner in which Congress defined the class of beneficiaries in the 1907 and 1910 Acts indicates that Congress believed that the Indians living in the opened counties still “belonged” to the Reservation after the lands were opened.
Finally, all the statutes contain an important guide to interpretation that the Court ignores. Each Act states, in almost identical terms, that “nothing in this ‘agreement shall be construed to deprive the . . . Indians of the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota, of any benefits to which they are entitled under existing treaties or agreements, not inconsistent with the provisions of this agreement.’ ”11 These provisions constitute clear congressional commands to interpret the Rosebud Acts so as to minimize conflicts with the Treaty of 1889. Yet the Court ignores these provisions and maximizes the conflict, by construing the Acts to limit not just the Rosebud Sioux’s land use, but also their jurisdiction.12
*624B
The Court’s construction of the Rosebud Acts is also untenable when the Acts are placed in historical context. Just as we held in Mattz that the statute at issue there was to be interpreted “from the overview of the earlier General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388,” 412 U. S., at 496, so, too, must the Rosebud Acts be construed from this perspective. As we observed in Mattz:
“[The policy of the General Allotment Act] was to continue the reservation system and the trust status of In*625dian lands, but to allot tracts to individual Indians for agriculture and grazing. When all the lands had been allotted and the trust expired, the reservation could be abolished. Unallotted lands were made available to non-Indians with the purpose, in part, of promoting interaction between the races and of encouraging Indians to adopt white ways.” Ibid. (footnote omitted).
This policy reflected Congress’ attempt “to reconcile the Government’s responsibility for the Indians’ welfare with the desire of non-Indians to settle upon reservation lands.” DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S., at 432. Because the “familiar forces,” id., at 431, at work on Congress demanded land for settlers, Congress opened the reservations. But because these forces were not overly concerned with the niceties of reservation boundaries, the reservation status of the opened areas was preserved until the trust period expired, to insure federal protection of the Indians while they were being “civilized” through contacts with white settlers. Thus, to interpret the Rosebud Acts as terminating three-fourths of the Rosebud Reservation is to set them at war with Congress’ general policy toward Indians at the time the Acts were approved.
III
The Court ultimately rests its construction of the Acts on an analysis of their legislative history. While there may be occasional passages in the history that suggest an intent to terminate,13 I cannot agree that such an intent is established with anything approaching the requisite clarity.
*626In the first place, the legislative history of the Rosebud Acts is extraordinarily sparse. The 1904 Act, which the Court properly regards as the crucial Act, was introduced by Representative Burke of South Dakota on January 19, 1904, 38 Cong. Rec. 902-903; was reported out of the Committee on Indian Affairs, which Mr. Burke chaired, two days later, id., at 1010; and passed the House on February 1, id., at 1469, after a debate that consumes only six pages in the Congressional Record, id., at 1423-1429.14 The bill was transmitted to the Senate the same day; was reported out of the Committee chaired by Senator Gamble of South Dakota three days later; id., at 1601; and was called up, amended, and approved by the Senate without debate on April 18, id., at 4988.15 The House concurred in the Senate amendments the following day without any discussion. Id., at 5155. The 1907 Act received *627even less congressional attention. It was approved within one month after it was introduced without any debate in the Senate, 41 Cong. Rec. 3323 (1907), and with a debate in the House that occupies only one page in the Record, id., at 3104.16 Only the 1910 Act was seriously debated by Congress, and these debates focused almost exclusively on the method by which the opened lands would be distributed to white settlers. 45 Cong. Rec. 1066-1071, 5456-5473 (1910).
In light of the brevity of the debates, it is not surprising that there is a paucity of relevant materials. The Court finds just two quotations from the debates, ante, at 596, 608, and three quotations from the Committee Reports, ante, at 595, 611, 612, that directly bear on the disestablishment issue.17 What the Court cannot find, however, is particularly telling. Unlike the debates in Mattz which revealed that “the establishment of the reservation . . . was viewed as a mistake and an injustice,” 412 U. S., at 500, there were no expressions of hostility toward the existence or size of the Rosebud Reservation. Nor were there any statements indicating that Congress intended to deviate from its general policy of preserving reservations or to abandon its role as guardian of the Indians living in the opened counties. Indeed, although Congress was *628aware that the Rosebud Acts initiated a new policy toward surplus lands18—one which removed the Government from the role of buyer and the Indians from the role of seller—at no point in the debates did anyone discuss the consequences of this change on Reservation boundaries.
The poverty of the Court’s analysis is best revealed by its treatment of the history of the crucial 1904 Act. The Court begins with “the undisputed fact that the 1901 Agreement, had it been ratified by Congress, would have disestablished that portion of the Rosebud Reservation which lay in Gregory County.” Ante, at 591. Its review of the legislative history then leads it to conclude that “there is no indication that Congress intended to change anything other than the form of, and responsibility for, payment.” Ante, at 594-595. But the fact that Congress did not expressly repudiate all of the consequences of an Agreement to which it was not a party and which it had refused to ratify hardly establishes that Congress affirmatively intended those consequences to result from the very different transaction it devised in 1904.19 It is at least *629equally plausible that Congress did not explain the effect of the 1904 Act because it assumed that the Act would have precisely the same effect as earlier nonpurchase surplus land Acts such as those considered in Mattz: The lands would be opened and the reservations preserved. Nor is the fact that Congress adopted the format of the 1901 Agreement especially probative, since this may have been done simply out of convenience.
Ultimately, what the legislative history demonstrates, as co-counsel for the State has aptly concluded, is that Congress manifested an “almost complete lack of . . . concern with the boundary issue.” 20 The issue was of no great importance in the early 1900's as it was commonly assumed that all reservations would be abolished when the trust period on allotted lands expired. There was no pressure on Congress to accelerate this timetable, so long as settlers could acquire unused land. Accordingly, Congress simply did not focus on the boundary question. Its indifference is perhaps best manifested by the fact that in legislation concerning the Reservation enacted immediately subsequent to the Rosebud Acts, Congress at times referred to the opened counties as part of the Reservation, and at times referred to them as no longer part of the Reservation.21 For the Court to find in this con*630fusion and indifference a “clear” congressional intent to disestablish the Reservation is incomprehensible.
IV
The most obvious and immediate consequence of today’s decision is jurisdictional. Even though the people of South Dakota have expressly declined to assume jurisdiction over Indian country,22 from now on crimes (or torts) committed by the Indians on nontrust land in the opened counties will be within the jurisdiction of the State. This will create an “impractical pattern of checkerboard jurisdiction,” in which “law enforcement officers . . . will find it necessary to search tract books in order to determine whether criminal jurisdiction over each particular offense . . . is in the State or Federal Government.” Seymour v. Superintendent, 368 U. S., at 358. In addition, even while on their trust lands, the almost 2,000 enrolled Indians in the opened counties will be generally subject to “state law otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State,” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 149 (1973), even if the same law could not be applied to Reservation Indians because it would “interfere with reservation self-government or would impair a right granted or reserved *631by federal law,” id., at 148. This is reason enough to be troubled by today’s decision.
But beyond these jurisdictional consequences, the holding today places a grave cloud over the property rights of both the Tribe and the Indians living off the newly contracted Reservation. With respect to the Tribe, 4,600 acres in the opened counties were returned to it pursuant to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 984, after the Secretary found, in the words of § 3 of the Act, that these were “the remaining surplus lands of [an] Indian reservation” opened before June 18, 1934. But if the opened counties were not part of the Reservation, then the Secretary’s right to return the land to the Tribe is at least open to question.23 More seriously, the Indians living on trust lands in the opened counties have assumed that § 2 of the Reorganization Act, which extended the trust period on “Indian lands,” applied to their property. But if these counties were not part of a reservation, this assumption is dubious at best, since § 8 of the Act states that the Act shall not “be construed to relate to Indian holdings of allotments . . . upon the public domain outside of the geographic boundaries of any Indian reservation now existing . . . .” Should it be determined that the trust period was not extended, the State of South Dakota could claim crushing amounts of back taxes.
Finally, today’s decision may result in a sharp reduction in the federal aid available to members of the Rosebud Tribe living off the Reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been administering the opened counties as part of the Reservation, see n. 2, supra, and in requesting appropriations for the Reservation Indians has included Indians living in the *632opened counties, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 37-38. In addition, we have been advised by the Association on American Indian Affairs et al., as amici curiae, that the Rosebud Tribe has received a large amount of federal aid pursuant to a variety of federal programs. Brief 31-39. The Association reports that in the past the Tribe has been able to expend these monies for programs in the opened as well as the closed counties, because the federal agencies have viewed all the counties as part of the Reservation. Ibid. But in light of today’s decision, the Tribe’s ability to use federal funds to benefit tribal members living in these counties is in serious doubt.24
Nor are these potential consequences limited to the Rosebud Reservation. The Rosebud Acts were described by their sponsors as the beginning of a new policy with respect to surplus lands. See n. 18, supra. During the decade following the enactment of the first Rosebud Act, Congress passed 21 other statutes that opened surplus reservation lands to settlers.25 If the Rosebud Acts diminished the Rosebud Res*633ervation, then the boundaries of more than a score of other reservations must be in doubt.
Because I can find no principled justification for inflicting manifold injuries on the Rosebud Sioux Indians and for jeopardizing the rights of numerous other tribes, I respectfully dissent.

 The constitution of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 1935, App. 1396-1397, states in Art. I that “[t]he jurisdiction of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe . . . shall extend to the territory within the original confines of the Rosebud Reservation boundaries as established by the act of March 2, 1889 . . . .”
There is some confusion in the record concerning the jurisdictional history of the disputed area. At the conclusion of his lengthy opinion, the District Judge stated that “the State of South Dakota has treated the [disputed] counties . . . as portions of the state over which the State of South Dakota can exercise jurisdiction since the passage of [the] acts.” 375 F. Supp. 1065, 1083 (SD 1974). But contrary to the Court’s suggestion, ante, at 604-605, n. 27, this statement is hotly disputed insofar as it implies that the Tribe has conceded jurisdiction. The Tribe claims it “has consistently exercised jurisdiction over Indians on all parts of the reservation.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 2b. The United States agrees, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 32 n. 22, and has provided a number of examples, id., at 23a-32a.

 The United States reports that it has treated the disputed areas as part of the Reservation, and that it maintains or funds child-welfare *617programs, burial assistance, outpatient clinics, and housing in these areas. Id., at 37-38. See also Letter from the Acting Area Director, Aberdeen, S. D., Bureau of Indian Affairs, to Neil Proto, Dept. of Justice, Aug. 23, 1974, App. 1405-1409, detailing these services.

 The National Indian Law Library’s compilation of Allotment/Cession Statutes, Doc. No. 002279, contains 11 additional examples, taken from statutes enacted between 1888-1913.

 The United States did agree, in § 4 of the Act, to purchase sections 16 and 36 of Gregory County and to grant these sections to the State for school purposes. The significance of this grant is discussed in n. 12, infra.

 1904 Act, § 1, Art. I; 1907 Act, § 1; 1910 Act, § 1.

 The 1907 Act provided in § 2 that before opening the lands the Secretary of the Interior “may permit Indians who have an allotment within the Rosebud Reservation to relinquish such allotment and to receive in lieu thereof an allotment anywhere within said reservation, and he shall also allot one hundred and sixty acres of land to each child . . . belonging on the Rosebud Reservation who has not heretofore received an allotment.” The fact that these allotments were to be made before the county was opened to settlers indicates that they could be taken from the lands to be opened. See also H. R. Rep. No. 7613, 59th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1907) (“The bill further provides that . . . the Indians within the reservation may relinquish allotments and select allotments in any other portion of the reservation, including the tract affected by this bill”). (Emphasis added.) The 1910 Act is even clearer in this regard; it excludes from the opened county lands that “have been or may be hereafter allotted to Indians.” (Emphasis added.)
Significantly, the 1901 Agreement which, if ratified, would have partially terminated the Reservation, did not contain any provision for new or in lieu allotments in the tract to be ceded.

 1904 Act, § 6; 1907 Act, § 8; 1910 Act, § 11. See also United States v. Brindle, 110 U. S. 688, 693 (1884). Although as the Court notes, ante, at 596-597, n. 18, Congress did attempt to assure that the beneficial interest eventually would be extinguished, the Acts contain no guarantee. Indeed, *622the Indians retained an interest in 4,600 acres until 1938 when these lands were restored to the Tribe.

 1904 Act, § 2; 1910 Act, § 1 (second proviso). The 1910 Act in § 1 also reserved timberland to the Indians, although there was a dispute in Congress as to whether any such land existed. Compare 45 Cong. Rec. 5471 (1910) (remarks of Rep. Burke) with S. Rep. No. 68, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1910). The provision in the 1904 Act reserving these lands was not contained in the original Agreement.

 1907 Act, § 5; 1910 Act, § 7.

 If the Rosebud Acts disestablished the Reservation, then arguably the Indians in Tripp County were not entitled to share in the 1907 proceeds either. By the time those proceeds were deposited “to the credit of the Indians belonging and having tribal rights on the Rosebud Reservation,” Tripp County had already been opened—and therefore, under the Court’s *623view, removed from the Reservation—by Act and Presidential Proclamation. Under this view, the Indians living in Mellette County, opened in 1910, would not have been entitled to the proceeds from the 1910 sales.

 1904 Act, § 1, Art. V; 1907 Act, § 8; 1910 Act, § 11.

 The Court concludes that two other provisions in the Acts support its interpretation. First, it notes, ante, at 599-601, 608, that in all three Acts Congress agreed to purchase two sections of the opened counties for school purposes. See n. 4, supra. Under the enabling Act admitting the Dakotas to the United States, Act of Feb. 22, 1889, § 10, 25 Stat. 679, Congress granted these sections to the State when a reservation was to be “extinguished and such lands [are] restored to, and becom[e] a part of, the public domain.” Based on ambiguous statements in the legislative history, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 443, 58th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1904) (the school provisions are “in conformity with . . . the enabling act”), the Court concludes that the grants in the Rosebud Acts were included “‘to implement the *624grant in the enabling act and for no other reason.’ ” Ante, at 600. But if that were true, the provisions in question would have been unnecessary, since the grant in the enabling Act was self-executing. Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 392-393 (1902). Indeed, in 1902 the House Committee on Indian Affairs had reached this conclusion with respect to the proposed bill ratifying the 1901 Agreement, and, accordingly, it had deleted the school provisions from the Senate version of the bill. H. R. Rep. No. 2099, 57th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1902). Since the Committee included school provisions in the subsequent Rosebud Acts, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 443, supra, at 2, it apparently believed that the change in the nature of the transaction meant that Congress was no longer extinguishing the Reservation and restoring the land to the public domain. Nothing in the legislative history suggests, as the Court seems to imply, ante, at 601 n. 24, that Congress thought it was accomplishing the former but not the latter.
Second, the Court notes, ante, at 613-615, that § 10 of the 1910 Act subjected the opened lands “ ‘to all the laws of the United States prohibiting the introduction of intoxicants into the Indian country.’ ” The Court reasons that if Congress believed the Reservation would remain intact this provision was unnecessary, since the Act of July 23, 1892, 27 Stat. 260, already prohibited the introduction of intoxicants into “Indian country.” Ante, at 614 n. 47. But in 1910 the definition of “Indian country” was unsettled, and Congress may have feared that patented land within a reservation was nevertheless not Indian country under Bates v. Clark, 95 U. S. 204 (1877), because Indian title had been extinguished. Nothing in Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 340 (1908), on which the Court relies, ante, at 614 n. 47, is to the contrary, as Dick involved ceded lands as to which the United States and the Indians had agreed federal laws would be applicable.

 The statements that most clearly suggest an intent to terminate are fully intelligible only to those with a knowledge of the geography of the Reservation. For example, in the House Committee Report on the 1904 Act, the Committee stated:
“There is no question but what the Indians have no use for the land that is proposed to be ceded by this bill; that the tract is only a very small portion of the Rosebud Reservation, and is really only a corner of *626the Reservation, which will be left compact and in a square tract . . . ." H. R. Rep. No. 443, supra, at 3.
By consulting a map one discovers that without Gregory County—the tract in question—the Rosebud Reservation would be “compact” and “square.” See also 41 Cong. Rec. 3104 (1907) (remarks of Rep. Burke: “They will have left, after this land is disposed of, a reservation that is substantially 50 miles square”); S. Rep. No. 68, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1910) (“The present area of the Rosebud Indian Reservation aggregates about 1,800,000 acres”); H. R. Rep. No. 332, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1910) (“There will still be left a reservation containing about 1,000,000 acres, and . . . there is no occasion for continuing a reservation larger than it will be when Mellette County is disposed of”).

 In the preceding session of Congress, Representative Burke had introduced an identical bill, 36 Cong. Rec. 2409 (1903), which was approved by his Committee two days later, id., at 2473, but never reached the House floor.

 Senator Gamble had introduced a similar bill the preceding year, id., at 2434, had obtained Committee approval in two days, id., at 2498; and Senate approval, without debate six days later, id., at 2747-2748. He reintroduced the bill on January 25, 1904, 38 Cong. Rec. 1100, but the House bill was approved before the Senate could act on Senator Gamble’s bill. See id., at 1877.

 Representative Burke and Senator Gamble each had introduced similar bills in December 1906, 41 Cong. Rec. 15, 50-51. After an agreement was reached between the Tribe and Inspector McLaughlin on January 21, 1907, Representative Burke introduced a new bill, id., at 1782. On February 14, 1907, the Office of Indian Affairs recommended that the agreement be approved (even though the Indians had not assented), and the bill was reported out of the House Committee that same day, id., at 3004. Two days later it passed the House. Id., at 3105.
On February 18, the Senate Committee sent to the Senate a substitute version of the 1906 Gamble bill. Id., at 3207. By that time, however, the House had already approved the second Burke bill, and the Senate amended and approved that bill on February 19, id., at 3323.

 The Court also quotes some discussions bearing on the school lands and liquor law provisions. See n. 12, supra.

 See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 443, 58th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1904) (“[T]hese bills present a new idea . . . and . . . will establish a new policy and be a departure from the policy that has long since prevailed”).

 Although the Court states that the “ 'problem in the Congress [with respect to the 1901 Agreement] was not jurisdiction, title, or boundaries. It was, simply put, money,’ ” ante, at 591 n. 10, the historical evidence is not nearly so clear. In the Senate, the concern with the 1901 Agreement was not with the fact that the United States was expending money to acquire the lands, but with its failure to obtain reimbursement from settlers. After much debate, however, the Senate ultimately rejected an amendment that would have required settlers to purchase the opened lands from the United States, 35 Cong. Rec. 4971 (1902), and approved the agreement, id., at 5024. The House, on the other hand, never even debated the ratification bill, and thus we have no firsthand knowledge of the basis for the opposition in that body. All of the statements that the Court relies on were made by proponents of the 1901 Agreement in connection with the 1903 and 1904 bills. Ante, at 591, and n. 10. Moreover, the fact that the House apparently was unwilling to authorize the United *629States to purchase the lands and recoup the costs from the settlers suggests that money was not the sole concern.

 Comment, New Town et al.: The Future of an Illusion, 18 S. D. L. Rev. 85, 117 (1973).

 For example, in 1909 Congress appropriated funds for a mission “[o]n the Rosebud Reservation,” and included within this category a mission in Gregory County. 35 Stat. 809. On the other hand, a 1905 Act extending the time for settling in Gregory County referred to the lands as “heretofore a part of the Rosebud Indian Reservation.” C. 545, 33 Stat. 700. The modern statutes appear to be more consistent in labeling the opened counties as part of the Reservation. See 77 Stat. 349 (1963); 78 Stat. 560 (1964); 89 Stat. 577 (1975).
The subsequent treatment of the disputed counties by the Interior *630Department reflects a similar confusion as to the status of the counties. Each side has presented to this Court a number of instances in which the counties were referred to by Department personnel in terms favorable to their case. Compare Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 33-38, 33a-41a, with Brief for Respondents 106-120. In the two instances in which Department officials have addressed the question directly, however, they have concluded that the opened counties are part of the Reservation. 54 I. D. 559 (1934) (opinion of Commissioner of Indian Affairs on Restoration of Lands Formerly Indian to Tribal Ownership); App. 1398-1404 (memorandum of Field Solicitor, Aberdeen, S. D., Apr. 6, 1972).

 At oral argument we were informed that in 1962 the people of South Dakota rejected by a referendum an Act of the legislature that would have granted the State jurisdiction over Indian country pursuant to §§ 6, 7, 67 Stat. 590 (1953). Tr. of Oral Arg. 10.

 Arguably the Secretary acted properly so long as the lands were part of the Reservation at the time they were opened. See 56 I. D. 330 (1938). This was not the theory on which the Secretary proceeded, however, in ordering restoration. 54 I. D. 559 (1934).

 For example, according to the United States, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has been making grants to the Tribe, will no longer be able to approve projects in the opened counties, since with respect to those counties the Tribe will no longer be a “governmental entity” or “public body” under 42 U. S. C. § 1460 (h). Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 38. The Department of Agriculture has already ruled, in light of the Court of Appeals decision, that money made available to the Tribe to acquire lands pursuant to 25 U. S. C. § 488, cannot be used in the opened counties. Brief for Association on American Indian Affairs et al. as Amici Curiae 36.
Of course, in holding that the opened counties are outside the Reservation, the Court does not necessarily preclude the Government or the Tribe from providing any aid to Indians in those counties. Cf. Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U. S. 199 (1974).

 National Indian Law Library, Allotment/Cession Statutes, Doc. No. 002279. Of these statutes, five were passed with the consent of the affected Indians; these five were enacted within a year after the first Rosebud Act.
In addition to the 21 post-Rosebud Act statutes, there are at least five *633pre-Rosebud Act laws which also opened surplus reservation land to settlers without Indian consent. There are also at least 15 pre-Rosebud Act laws which opened surplus land with consent.