Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma v. United States
| Decision Date | 23 January 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 226.,226. |
| Citation | 614 F.2d 272 |
| Parties | CADDO TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA et al. v. The UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Claims Court |
Marvin J. Sonosky, Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs. Rodney J. Edwards, Duluth, Minn., attorney of record. William R. Perry, Sonosky, Chambers & Sachse, Washington, D. C., of counsel.
Bernard M. Sisson, Washington, D. C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. James W. Moorman, Washington, D. C., for defendant.
Before FRIEDMAN, Chief Judge, and DAVIS and SMITH, Judges.
*
This case was originally filed with the Indian Claims Commission on August 8, 1951, under the Indian Claims Commission Act, the Act of August 13, 1946 (25 U.S.C. § 70 et seq. (1976)). It was transferred by the Commission to the Court of Claims on June 13, 1978, pursuant to section 23 of the 1946 act, as amended (25 U.S.C. § 70v (1976)).
As explained subsequently in the opinion, some of the plaintiffs' claims were disposed of by the Commission prior to the transfer of the case to the court. Other claims were still pending before the Commission at the time of the transfer.
Following the transfer of the case to the court, the parties filed two motions that gave rise to the present proceeding.
The first of these motions, entitled "Motion to Establish Date of Value," was filed by the defendant on July 18, 1978. The plaintiffs on November 1, 1978, filed a response in the form of a document entitled "Plaintiffs' Motion to Establish Dates of Valuation and Opposition to Defendant's Motion for a Date of Value," together with a supporting memorandum. Thereafter, the defendant on December 4, 1978, filed a memorandum replying to the plaintiffs' response of November 1, 1978.1 Finally, on January 18, 1979, the plaintiffs filed a reply to the defendant's memorandum of December 4, 1978.
The two motions relate to the valuation of certain lands which are located in what is now the State of Oklahoma and which are often referred to by the parties as the surplus unallotted lands of the Wichita Reservation.
To the extent that the pending motions ask the court to determine at this time the proper date or dates for the valuation of the lands involved in the motions, they are allowed. It would not be feasible for the parties to engage experts and otherwise prepare for a trial on valuation without first knowing the date or dates toward which their valuation evidence should be directed.
So that the issue as to the date or dates of valuation may be placed in a posture conforming to the rules of the court, it appears that such issue should be separated from the other issues in the case pursuant to Rule 131(b) for early consideration and determination, and it is so ordered. As the parties rely on the record heretofore made before the Indian Claims Commission, no actual trial for the reception of additional evidence on the issue as to the date or dates of valuation is necessary.
By way of background, it should be stated that the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma is an incorporated Indian tribe, having been chartered by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to section 3 of the act of June 26, 1936 (25 U.S.C. § 503 (1976)). The members of the tribe are modern-day descendants of a group of confederated Indian tribes which were collectively known as "the Caddo" (or "the Caddoes") and which, at one time, occupied a large territory in what is now northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. Because of a severe epidemic in about 1777 and the ravages of warfare with their northern neighbors, the Osages, in the late 1700's, the Caddo were substantially reduced in number and in power, so that, by 1800, they were confined mainly to a comparatively small area in what is now northwestern Louisiana and southwestern Arkansas.
The main body of the Caddo came under the jurisdiction of the United States for the first time as a result of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.2 Following negotiations, a treaty was entered into on July 1, 1835, between the Caddo chiefs and a commissioner appointed by the Secretary of War. Under the treaty (7 Stat. 470), the Caddo ceded to the United States the lands which they were then occupying in northwestern Louisiana and southwestern Arkansas, totaling 636,321.25 acres and now comprising Caddo Parish in Louisiana and Miller County in Arkansas. The consideration for the ceded land under the treaty was $80,000 in money and goods.
After the signing of the treaty in 1835, the Caddo who had been occupying the ceded lands left such lands and moved out of the United States into what is now eastern Texas and was then Mexican territory. In 1836, the area then occupied by the Caddo became part of the Republic of Texas, when Texas gained its independence from Mexico. Then, in 1845, the area became part of the United States, upon the annexation of Texas by the United States.
Following the admission of Texas into the Union, the United States on May 15, 1846, concluded a treaty (9 Stat. 844) with the Caddo and other Texas Indians. Under this treaty, the Indian tribes agreed that they would acknowledge themselves as being under the protection of the United States, and that the United States would have the sole and exclusive right of regulating trade and commerce with them.
In 1853, the Texas Legislature authorized the United States to establish an Indian reservation on state-owned vacant lands (upon its admission into the Union, Texas retained the ownership of all public lands within the State). The next year, in 1854, an Indian reservation was established on the Brazos River near Waco, Texas; and the Caddo moved from eastern Texas into the Brazos River Reservation, which they occupied along with other Indian tribes.
Because of hostility on the part of white settlers in the area, the Indians on the Brazos River Reservation and the Government subsequently agreed that the Indians would be moved from Texas to a site on the Washita (or Ouachita) River in the Indian Territory (now part of the State of Oklahoma). In accordance with this agreement, the Caddo moved to the Indian Territory in 1859. They and other Indian tribes from Texas were settled on an area of land that was commonly referred to as the Wichita Reservation (although it was not officially so designated). This was part of a large district which the United States had previously leased from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations for the permanent relocation and settlement of other Indian tribes. Later, in 1866, the Choctaws and Chickasaws released all of their interests in the leased district.
For some years, the Indian tribes on the wichita Reservation, including the Caddo, were generally known as "the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians."
On June 4, 1891, the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians (including the Caddo) entered into an agreement with David H. Jerome and two other commissioners acting for the United States. This agreement, which is often referred to as "the Jerome agreement," will be discussed at some length later in the opinion. For the present, it should suffice to say that, in the agreement, the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians ceded to the United States "all their claim, title and interest in and to the lands" comprising the Wichita Reservation; that each individual Indian was to receive, out of such lands, an allotment of 160 acres; that with respect to the ceded lands not needed to satisfy the 160-acre allotments to individual Indians, the agreement provided that "the question as to what sum of money, if any, shall be paid to * * * the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians for the possessory right claimed by them in such surplus lands shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, the decision of Congress thereon to be final and binding upon said Indians"; and that the agreement declared that it would "have effect whenever it shall be ratified by the Congress of the United States."
The Jerome agreement was dealt with by Congress in the act of March 2, 1895 (28 Stat. 876, 894-99). This statute declared that the Jerome agreement was "accepted, ratified, and confirmed," subject to certain provisions that will be discussed later in the opinion.
As stated earlier in the opinion, this case was originally filed with the Indian Claims Commission on August 8, 1951, under the act of August 13, 1946 (25 U.S.C. § 70 et seq. (1976)). The complaint contained six counts.
Count I was based on the treaty of July 1, 1835, and alleged that the payment which the Government made to the Caddo "for the 1835 cession was so inadequate as to amount to unconscionable consideration amounting to prima facie evidence of fraud."
Count II, as amended, alleged that the Caddo at one time held Indian title to, and ownership of, lands in the present State of Texas, and that such lands "were taken by the United States without any compensation whatsoever between 1845, the year Texas was admitted into the Union as a state of the United States, and the year 1859 when * * * the Caddo were removed from the state of Texas."
Count III alleged that the consideration of $80,000 which the Government agreed to pay the Caddo as compensation under the 1835 treaty was wrongfully and illegally expended by an Indian agent for the benefit of the Government and not for the benefit of the Caddo.
Count IV, as amended, alleged that the Caddo formerly held Indian title to, and ownership of, lands within the present States of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana (in addition to the lands claimed in counts I and II), and that such lands "were taken by the United States without any compensation whatsoever, between 1803, the date of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States from France and the Caddo treaty of July 1, 1835 (7 Stat. 470)."
Count V, which is the part of the complaint directly involved in the present problem, contained the following allegations:
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Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma v. Hodel
...Wichita Reservation, had originally been leased from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. See generally Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma v. United States, 614 F.2d 272, 273-74, 222 Ct.Cl. 306 (1980) (discussing history of the settlement). For some time after their settlement, the tribes on the Wichita......