Choctaw Nation of Indians v. United States

• Decision Date: 08 March 1943
• Docket Number: No. 80,80
• Citation: 63 S.Ct. 672,318 U.S. 423,87 L.Ed. 877
• Parties: CHOCTAW NATION OF INDIANS v. UNITED STATES et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

318 U.S. 423

63 S.Ct. 672

87 L.Ed. 877

CHOCTAW NATION OF INDIANS

v UNITED STATES et al.

No. 80.

Argued Dec. 7, 8, 1942.

Decided March 8, 1943.

Mr. Robert E. Mulroney, of Washington, D.C., for the United states.

Mr. William G. Stigler, of Stigler, Okl., for Choctaw Nation of Indians.

Mr. Melven Cornish, of McAlester, Okl., for Chickasaw Nation of Indians.

Mr. Justice MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court.

On August 5, 1929, this suit was begun against the United States by the Chickasaw Nation under the jurisdictional Act of June 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 537. ¹ By order of January 2, 1940, the Choctaw Nation was impleaded as a defendant on motion of the United States. The question is whether the Chickasaw Nation is entitled to compensation for its one-fourth interest in the common lands of the two nations allotted to the Choctaw freedmen, and, if so, who should compensate the Chickasaw Nation. The Court of Claims held that the Chickasaws were entitled to compensation and that the primary liability, the amount of which was reserved for future determination, rested upon the Choctaw Nation. Since there was no indication that it would be unable to satisfy whatever judgment might be made, the Court of Claims declined to consider or decide the liability, if any, of the United States.² We granted certiorari, 317 U.S. 607, 63 S.Ct. 27, 87 L.Ed. —-, because the case was thought to raise important questions concerning the relations between the two tribes and the United States.

At the time of the Civil War the Chickasaws and the Choctaws were slave-owning tribes holding their lands in common, their respective interests being one-fourth and three-fourths. Both fought on the side of the Confederacy, and, after the cessation of hostilities, they entered into the Treaty of April 28, 1866, 14 Stat. 769, with the United States. That treaty abolished slavery among them and provided in Article III for a fund of $300,000 which was to be held in trust for the two nations and paid to them (one-fourth to the Chickasaws and three-fourths to the Choctaws) when they conferred tribal rights and privileges upon their former African slaves and gave them each forty acres of the common lands. If such laws were not adopted within two years, the fund was to be held for the benefit of those former slaves whom the United States should remove from the territory, instead of for the two nations. However, the Treaty also provided in Article XLVI that $200,000 of the fund was to be paid over immediately to the two nations and this was done. See Act of July 26, 1866, 14 Stat. 255, 259.

In 1882, neither nation having acted in accordance with the Treaty and the United States having taken no steps to remove the freedmen, an act was passed by Congress which provided that either tribe might adopt and provide for their freedmen in accordance with Article III of the Treaty. Act of May 17, 1882, 22 Stat. 68, 72, 73. In 1883 the Choctaws adopted their freedmen and declared them each entitled to forty acres of the nation's lands, but no allotments were actually made.³ Congress thereupon appropriated for the Choctaws their share of the balance of the $300,000 fund. See Act of March 3, 1885, 23 Stat. 362, 365, 366. The Chickasaws never adopted their freedmen although they took an abortive step in that direction in 1873. See United States v. Choctaw Nation (The Chickasaw Freedmen v. Choctaw Nation), 193 U.S. 115, 24 S.Ct. 411, 48 L.Ed. 640, and H.Ex.Doc. No. 207, 42d Cong., 3d Sess. Despite this failure the Chickasaws received some of the balance of their share of the original fund.⁴

In 1897 the Commission of the Five Civilized Tribes⁵ negotiated the Atoka agreement with the two Indian nations. That provided for the allotment in severalty of the common tribal lands, including forty-acre allotments to the Choctaw freedmen, and contained a provision for the reduction of allotments to Choctaw Indian citizens on account of the allotments to the Choctaw freedmen, as follows:

'Provided that the lands allotted to the Choctaw freedmen, are to be deducted from the portion to be allotted under this agreement to the members of the Choctaw tribe, so as to reduce the allotments to the Choctaws by the value of the same and not affect the value of the allotments to the Chickasaws.'

No provision was made in the original Atoka agreement for allotments to the Chickasaw freedmen, but in confirming the Atoka agreement as part of the Curtis Act of 1898 (30 Stat. 495) Congress stipulated in § 21 that forty-acre allotments were to be made to the Chickasaw freedmen as well, to be used until their rights under the Treaty of 1866 were determined in such manner as Congress might direct. It also provided in § 29 that all the lands of the two tribes were to be allotted to the members of the tribes so as to give each one a fair and equal share, and that the lands allotted to the Choctaw and Chickasaw freedmen were 'to be deducted from the portion to be allotted under this agreement to the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribe so as to reduce the allotment to the Choctaws and Chickasaws by the value of the same.' (30 Stat. 505, 506.) This confirmed agreement was approved by both tribes.

Before any allotments were made, however, a supplementary agreement was entered into by the United States and the two nations in 1902 (32 Stat. 641), which radically changed matters by providing for the allotment to each member of the two tribes of but three hundred and twenty acres instead of the aliquot allotment of all the land, as provided in the Atoka agreement. Permanent allotments of forty acres were to be made to each Chickasaw and Choctaw freedman, the remaining unallotted land was to be sold and the proceeds were to be used to equal- ize allotments as far as necessary, the balance being paid into the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the two tribes and distributed per capita as their other funds.⁶ That agreement also contained elaborate provisions in §§ 36—40, inclusive, under a subheading entitled 'Chickasaw Freedmen', for a suit in the Court of Claims to determine whether the Chickasaw freedmen had any right to allotments under the Treaty of 1866 and subsequent Congressional and tribal legislation, the United States to pay the value of those allotments to the two nations according to their respective interests if the Chickasaw freedmen were held to be without such rights.

The 1902 agreement contained no express provision concerning the deduction of allotments to the Choctaw freedmen from allotments to the members of the Choctaw Nation or from that Nation's proportionate share in the common lands. Section 40 concluded with a proviso that: 'nothing contained in this paragraph shall be construed to affect or change the existing status or rights of the two tribes as between themselves respecting the lands taken for allotment to freedmen, or the money, if any, recovered as compensation therefor, as aforesaid.' A further provision of the agreement, § 68, declared that: 'No act of Congress or treaty provision, nor any provision of the Atoka agreement, inconsistent with this agreement, shall be in force in said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.'

Following the 1902 agreement allotments were made from the common lands to the citizens and the freedmen of the two tribes. The Chickasaws received no compensation for their one-fourth interest in the common lands allotted to the Choctaw freedmen either by reduction of the allotments to the Choctaw citizens or of that tribe's proportionate share, or by any other settlement or adjustment. In the litigation authorized by §§ 36—40 of the 1902 agreement the Chickasaw freedmen were held without rights to the allotments which had been given them, and accordingly judgment was rendered against the United States for the value of their allotments in the sum of $606,936.08, which was paid to the two nations in the proportion of one-fourth to the Chickasaws and three-fourths to the Choctaws. United States v. Choctaw Nation, 38 Ct.Cl. 558, affirmed sub nom., The Chickasaw Freedmen, 193 U.S. 115, 24 S.Ct. 411, 48 L.Ed. 640; and see Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 774, 807, 808.

The Court of Claims held that the Treaty of 1866 was not determinative, that the confirmed Atoka agreement required that allotments to Choctaw freedmen be deducted from the allotments to the Choctaw citizens, and that the proviso to § 40 of the supplemental agreement of 1902, while 'not well chosen' for the purpose, preserved this requirement. We take a different view.

The Treaty of 1866, in Article III of which the Chickasaws unconditionally consented to allotments from the common lands to Choctaw freedmen who might be adopted in conformity with the treaty requirements, is not determinative because it was superseded, before any allotments were made, by the confirmed Atoka agreement which required the deduction of all freedmen's allotments, both Choctaw and Chickasaw, from those of the members of their respective tribes. The Atoka agreement was in turn supplemented by the 1902 agreement which omitted the deduction requirement of the Atoka agreement and contained not a word about deducting freedmen's allotments from the respective tribal shares in the common lands. In view of § 68 of the 1902 agreement which repealed all inconsistent provisions of the Atoka agreement, these omissions were fatal. When the differences between the Atoka agreement and that of 1902 are considered, it is clear that the deduction provision of the former was inconsistent with the latter. The Atoka agreement provided for the allotment of all the land with the members of the tribes sharing equally, and the allotments to their freedmen were to be deducted from their portion so as to reduce their allotments pro tanto. But under the 1902 agreement the members of both tribes were to receive definite allotments of three hundred and twenty...