Chase v. United States
| Decision Date | 23 April 1915 |
| Docket Number | 4200. |
| Citation | 222 F. 593 |
| Parties | CHASE v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Syllabus by the Court
The treaty with the Omaha Tribe of Indians of March 6, 1865 (14 Stat. 667), granted to the assignees of land in severalty thereunder an inheritable title in fee simple to their respective tracts, subject to a restriction on alienation to others than the United States and other members of the tribe.
When the United States brings an action in which it has no pecuniary interest, in behalf of or for the benefit of a private party, it stands in the shoes of that party, and has no higher or better right.
Indians as well as other residents and citizens of the United States are protected by the fifth amendment to the Constitution against deprivation of property, life, or liberty without due process of law.
No act of Congress or legislative flat constitutes such due process of law as may impair or destroy a vested right in or title to property.
The construction of treaties and the determination of the character and extent of the rights and titles granted thereunder is a judicial and not a legislative function.
The Constitution grants the power and imposes the duty, which may not be renounced, upon the courts to form and enforce their independent judgments upon these questions, although they may differ from the opinions of the Congress or its members.
Because when treaties were made with them, the Indians were unfamiliar with the language in which they were written, and with the exact meaning of many of the terms used in them they must be construed liberally, doubtful expressions must be resolved in favor of the Indians, and the treaties must be interpreted, 'not according to the technical meaning of their words, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.'
Hiram Chase, of Pender, Neb., and Thomas L. Sloan (William Ross King, of Omaha, Neb., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.
A. W. Lane, Asst. U.S. Atty., of Lincoln, Neb. (F. S. Howell, U.S. Atty., of Omaha, Neb., on the brief), for the United States.
Before SANBORN and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and TRIEBER, District Judge.
The question in this case is whether Hiram Chase, the sole heir of the grantee of a tract of 40 acres of land under section 4 of the treaty of March 6, 1865, with the Omaha Tribe of Indians (14 Stat. 667, 668), or Rose Wolf Setter, the sole heir of the grantee of the same land under section 5 of the act for the sale of a part of the reservation of the Omaha Tribe of Indians of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat. c. 434, pp. 341, 342), has the title and the right to the possession of the tract. The facts which condition the answer to this question were set forth and admitted in the pleadings in this action, in which the United States, as trustee for Rose Wolf Setter and for the Omaha Tribe, brought an action and recovered a judgment against Chase for the value, use, and occupation of the land for many years. Those facts are these:
By the treaty of March 6, 1865, the United States agreed to pay the Omaha Tribe $57,000, the tribe agreed to sell and convey a part of their reservation to the United States, the United States and the tribe further agreed that the remainder of the reservation of the Omaha Tribe should be set apart for the purpose of abolishing the tenure in common by which the Omaha Indians held their lands and of assigning the same to them in severalty--
Pursuant to this treaty the land in controversy, which was a part of the land reserved thereunder to be assigned in severalty, was duly assigned about the year 1870 by the Secretary of the Interior to Clarissa Chase, a member of the Omaha Tribe, and the mother of the defendant.
A certificate was issued to her about the year 1870 by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 'that the said land was so assigned for the exclusive use and benefit of the said Clarissa Chase, her heirs and descendants, and that said tract shall not be alienated in fee, leased, or otherwise disposed of except to the United States, or the other members of the tribe under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, and they shall be exempt from taxation, levy, sale or forfeiture, until otherwise provided for by Congress,' and thereafter, in the year 1871, Clarissa Chase took possession of the land, and continued in the open, notorious, exclusive, and adverse possession thereof until she died, about November 1, 1875. Immediately after her death Hiram Chase, who was her only surviving child and her sole heir at law, entered into possession of the land as such, and has ever since continued in the open, notorious, exclusive, and adverse possession thereof, claiming to be its owner.
The claim of the real plaintiff below, Rose Wolf Setter, arises in this way. By the terms of sections 4, 5, and 6 of the act to provide for the sale of a part of the reservation of the Omaha Tribe, etc., approved August 7, 1882 (22 Stat. c. 434, Secs. 5, 6, p. 342), Congress provided (1) 'that any right in severalty acquired by any Indian under existing treaties shall not be affected by this act;' (2) authorized the Secretary of the Interior to allot in severalty to the Indians of the tribe that portion of its reservation which includes the tracts in controversy in this action, and declared that the 'allotments shall be deemed and held to be in lieu of the allotments or assignments provided for in the fourth article of the treaty with the Omahas, concluded March 6, 1865, and for which, for the most part, certificates in the names of individual Indians to whom tracts have been assigned, have been issued by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs as in said article provided,' that certain Indians who have made valuable improvements on specified tracts of land should have respectively preference rights to select them, and that after the allotments were made under the act of August 7, 1882, the certificates issued by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs under the treaty of March 6, 1865, should be null and void, and the Secretary of the Interior should issue patents to the allottees under the act of 1882 to the effect that the United States would hold the land thus allotted in trust for the allottees and their heirs respectively for 25 years, and would then convey the same to them. In 1899 the land in controversy was allotted by the Secretary of the Interior to Reuben Wolf, a member of the Omaha Tribe entitled to an allotment, and, on March 7, 1902, a trust patent for the land was issued to him under the act of August 7, 1882. On August 10, 1899, Reuben Wolf died, and Rose Wolf Setter, the real plaintiff, is his widow and sole heir.
Under this state of facts the question is whether the treaty of 1865 granted to Clarissa Chase a substantial title to or right in the 40-acre tract in question, or a mere revocable license of possession and use thereof. If the latter, the act of 1882 was undoubtedly a sufficient revocation of the license, and the title of Rose Wolf Setter is the superior one. If the former, the act of 1887 is ineffective to impair or destroy the right and title of Chase, and his title and right of possession must prevail over the claim of Rose Wolf Setter, the Omaha Tribe, and the United States, which has no pecuniary interest in the action or the property involved, and no higher or better right than Rose Wolf Setter, whom it represents.
United States v. Beebe, 127 U.S. 338, 346, 8 Sup.Ct. 1083, 32 L.Ed. 121; United States v. Winona & St. Peter R.R. Co., 67 F. 969, 972, 15 C.C.A. 117, 120.
If by the treaty of 1865 a substantial right in or title...
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