1. The United States, as guardian of tribal Indians, is bound to
discharge its trust with good faith and fairness, and treaties made
with them should be liberally construed. P.
264 U. S.
448.
2. The treaty made in 1855 with the Quileute and other Indians,
by which they surrendered broader claims for a limited reservation,
provided for money "to clear, fence, and break up a sufficient
quantity of land for cultivation," and authorized the President to
assign "lands" in severalty to the Indians for permanent homes.
Held that timbered lands were not intended to be excluded
from assignment.
Id.
3. The General Indian Allotment Act should be construed when
possible in harmony with previous Indian treaties.
Id.
4. The General Allotment Act, in limiting allotments to "eighty
acres of agricultural or one hundred and sixty acres of grazing
land to any one Indian," was not meant to preclude an allotment of
timbered lands, capable of being cleared and cultivated, but simply
to differentiate in the matter of area between lands adaptable to
agricultural uses and lands valuable only for grazing purposes. P.
264 U. S.
449.
284 F. 827 affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals which
affirmed a decree of the district court for the plaintiff and
appellee Payne in his suit to determine his right to an allotment
of land in an Indian Reservation.
Page 264 U. S. 447
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee, an Indian of the Quillehute tribe, brought suit in the
federal District Court for the Western District of Washington to
determine his right to an allotment of an 80-acre tract of land in
the Quinaielt Indian Reservation in that state. Authority for
bringing the suit is found in 28 Stat. 305, c. 290, as amended by
31 Stat. 760, c. 217. The treaty with the Quillehute and other
Indians, made in 1855, among other things, provides for the removal
and settlement of these Indians upon a reservation to be selected
for them by the President, and for the payment by the United States
of $2,500 "to clear, fence, and break up a sufficient quantity of
land for cultivation." 12 Stat. 971, Articles 2 and 5. The
President is authorized by Article 6 of the treaty, at his
discretion, to cause the reserved lands to be surveyed and assign
the same to individual Indians or families for permanent homes on
the same terms and under the same conditions as are provided in
Article 6 of the treaty with the Omahas, concluded in 1854. 10
Stat. 1043, 1044. By the General Allotment Act, as amended, it is
provided:
In all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been or
shall hereafter be located upon any reservation created for their
use by treaty stipulation, act of Congress, or executive order, the
President shall be authorized to cause the same or any part thereof
to be surveyed or resurveyed whenever in his opinion such
reservation or any part thereof may be advantageously utilized for
agricultural or grazing purposes by such Indians, and the
Page 264 U. S. 448
cause allotment to each Indian located thereon to be made in
such areas as in his opinion may be for their best interest not to
exceed eighty acres of agricultural or one hundred and sixty acres
of grazing land to any one Indian. . . .
24 Stat. 388, c. 119, as amended by 26 Stat. 794, c. 383, and 36
Stat. 859, 860, c. 431.
The land in question was selected by Payne in 1911, after
survey, through and with the approval of an allotting agent of the
United States. It is of mixed character, 40 or 50 acres being
timbered, and the remainder being bottom land, lying along the Raft
River.
The sole question we are called upon to decide is whether the
land, being timbered, is to be excluded from the operation of the
Allotment Act, which speaks only of agricultural and grazing lands.
Both courts below determined the question in the negative, 284 F.
827, and we agree with them. The treaty makes no restriction in
respect of the character of the land to be "assigned," and, while
the Allotment Act, being later, must control in case of conflict,
it should be harmonized with the letter and spirit of the treaty so
far as that reasonably can be done, since an intention to alter,
and
pro tanto abrogate, the treaty is not to be lightly
attributed to Congress. These Indians yielded whatever claims they
may have had to a valuable and extensive area in exchange for a
relatively small reservation, relying upon what they undoubtedly
understood to be an assurance on the part of the general government
that they would be given individual and permanent homes therein.
They are an unlettered people, unskilled in the use of language,
Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1,
175 U. S. 10-11,
with regard to whom the United States occupies the position and
assumes the responsibilities of virtual guardianship, bound by
every moral and equitable consideration to discharge its trust with
good faith and fairness,
Choctaw Nation v. United States,
119 U. S. 1,
119 U. S. 28.
Construing the treaty liberally in
Page 264 U. S. 449
favor of the rights claimed under it, as we are bound to do,
Haguenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483,
100 U. S. 487,
we conclude that the character of the lands thereafter to be set
apart for them severally was not restricted. The authority of the
President is, broadly, to assign "lands," and that it was not meant
to exclude timber lands is borne out by the provision for a payment
"to clear, fence and break up a sufficient quantity of land for
cultivation," which may well mean to "clear" it of timber. It
follows that, if the Allotment Act is now construed to exclude such
lands from allotment, a materially restrictive change will have
been wrought in the terms of the treaty. Such a construction is to
be avoided, if possible.
Chew Heong v. United States,
112 U. S. 536,
112 U. S.
541.
It is common knowledge that vast bodies of land, originally
covered with timber, in some of the public land states, including
eastern Washington, have been acquired by private entry, cleared,
and brought under cultivation. The view that such lands were open
to entry for agricultural purposes seems to have been generally
recognized and acted upon (
see Johnson v. Bridal Veil Lumbering
Co., 24 Or. 182, 184-186), and, so far as we are advised, has
never been questioned by the Land Department of the United States.
We are therefore constrained to reject the rigidly literal
interpretation of the Allotment Act for which the government here
contends. It is not an unreasonable view of the requirement that an
allotment shall not "exceed eighty acres of agricultural or one
hundred and sixty acres of grazing land" to say that it was meant
not to preclude an allotment of timbered lands, capable of being
cleared and cultivated, but simply to differentiate, in the matter
of area, between lands which may be adapted to agricultural uses
and lands valuable only for grazing purposes.
The decree of the circuit court of appeals is
Affirmed.