Confederated Bands of Ute Indians v. United States

• Decision Date: 17 February 1947
• Docket Number: No. 141,141
• Citation: 91 L.Ed. 823,330 U.S. 169,67 S.Ct. 650
• Parties: CONFEDERATED BANDS OF UTE INDIANS v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

330 U.S. 169

67 S.Ct. 650

91 L.Ed. 823

CONFEDERATED BANDS OF UTE INDIANS

v UNITED STATES.

No. 141.

Argued Jan. 14, 15, 1947.

Decided Feb. 17, 1947.

As Amended March 31, 1947.

[Syllabus from pages 169-171 intentionally omitted] Mr. Ernest L. Wilkinson, of Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. Marvin J. Sonosky, of Washington D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners brought this action in the Court of Claims under the Act of June 28, 1938, 52 Stat. 1209, as amended, 55 Stat. 593, to recover compensation for lands made available to them by an 1875 Executive Order of the President and sub-sequently taken from them by the United States. Their claim was that by an Act of June 15, 1880, 21 Stat. 199, Congress had undertaken to sell these lands for the benefit of the petitioners, but that they had never been compensated for them. The Court of Claims, one judge concurring specially, made findings of fact and concluded as a matter of law that petitioners had no compensable interest in the lands because they 'never did acquire title to these * * * lands and * * * the Congress never did agree to sell them for the account of' petitioners. Ct.Cl., 64 F.Supp. 569, 571. We granted certiorari, 329 U.S. 694, 67 S.Ct. 50.

The findings of the Court of Claims from official letters, Executive Orders and statutes incorporated in these findings were as follows:

A treaty of March 2, 1868, 15 Stat. 619, between the United States and petitioners' ancestors, the Ute Indian tribes, established a reservation for them in Colorado. The northern boundary of the 15 million acres there ceded was described in the treaty as a line fifteen miles north of, and parallel to the 40th parallel of north latitude. In the 15-mile wide strip north of the 40th parallel lay the White River Valley which had been settled by the Utes as a most suitable place for grazing and cultivation. One of the two Government Indian agencies provided for the reservation by the treaty was established in that strip.

As a result of misunderstandings in 1869 and 1874 between the Utes and white settlers to the north as to the true location of the northern treaty boundary, a survey was made in 1875 by one Miller. Miller's instructions, however, required him to stake out a line which he admitted to the local Indian agent and to the Utes themselves to be fifteen to eighteen miles south of the true boundary described in the treaty. If Miller's line had been correct, it would have excluded from the 1868 reservation the fertile White River Valley, and would have also excluded the agency buildings which had been erected there.

The marking out of the erroneous Miller line greatly upset the Indians because they feared they would be driven from the White River Valley. This embarrassed the local Indian agent who had previously assured the Indians that the White River Valley lay within their reservation. He promptly reported the results of the survey and the reaction of the Indians to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, and urged the necessity of a new survey at the earliest practicable date. He stated that if the Miller survey were correct, however, the Indians would be driven from the White River Valley—'the only farming land and stock range in this part of the reservation'—and forced to settle on a river forty miles to the south. The Commissioner, acting on this report and a statement by Miller's attorney that Miller's line was correct, wrote to the Secretary of the Interior that the Miller survey 'develops the fact that the White River and surrounding valleys as well as the Agency buildings and improvements at the White River Agency lie north of the * * * boundary and consequently are not within the limits of the * * * Ute Reservation.' He therefore recommended to the Secretary that the President be requested to issue an Executive Order to make available to the Utes additional territory north of the 1868 treaty boundary. The President, on t e recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, issued the order.¹ And thereafter the Commissioner wrote the local agent that the order included 'all that tract of country lying between the north boundary of the Ute reservation as defined in the treaty of March 2, 1868 * * * which was the boundary surveyed by Mr. Miller. * * * This action fully protects your Indians in the peaceable possession of their improvements in the White River Valley and the Agency buildings, and will enable you to assure the Indians of the exact location of their reservation as enlarged.'

In 1879, several years after the Executive Order was issued, hostilities broke out between some of the Utes and Government representatives in which the Indian agent at White River, all the agency's male employees, and a U.S. military detachment were killed in the so-called 'Meeker massacre.' Ex. Doc. No. 1, pt. 5, 47th Cong., 2d Sess. (1879) 16—19, 82—97. There have been charges and counter-charges as to who was responsible for inciting these hostilities. Whoever was responsible, it is clear that Congress, aroused by the massacre, took steps to punish the Indians who participated in it, to dispossess the Utes of their reservation, and to remove them from Colorado. Congressional action to accomplish this was provided by the Act of June 15, 1880, 21 Stat. 199, which ratified and embodied an agreement reached earlier that year between the Government and the leaders of the Utes who had promised 'to use their best endeavors with their people to procure their consent to cede to the United States all the territory of the present Ute Reservation * * *.' This Act authorized specific allotments to individual Indians from the lands so ceded. But § 3 provided that 'all the lands not * * * allotted, the title to which is, by the said agreement of * * * the Ute Indians, and this acceptance by the United States, released and conveyed to the United States * * *' would be restored to the public domain for sale as public lands. The proceeds of the sale of the land so conveyed by the Utes to the United States were, upon satisfaction of indemnity conditions imposed because of the massacre, to be distributed to the Indians. Thereafter, in 1882, an Executive Order declared that the lands withdrawn from the public domain by the Executive Order of 1875 and 'set apart for the use of the * * * Ute Indians * * * hereby is, restored to the public domain.' 1 Kappler, supra, pp. 834, 834.

Pursuant to an Act of 1909, 35 Stat. 781, petitioners recovered a judgment for the proceeds of certain lands sold by the Government, as well as the value of certain lands appropriated by the Government to its own use, all of which were part of the 1868 treaty lands. The Ute Indians v. United States, 45 Ct.Cl. 440; 46 Ct.Cl. 225. Thus, except for certain treaty lands not at issue here, litigation concerning which is now pending in the Court of Claims, the only lands in Colorado for which the Indians have not been paid are those to the north of and outside the 1868 treaty reservation which were made avail ble to them by the Executive Order of 1875. In pursuit of compensation for these Executive Order lands, petitioners have brought this action pursuant to the Act of June 28, 1938, supra. That Act confers jurisdiction on the Court of Claims to hear, determine, and render final judgment on all legal and equitable claims of the Utes and to award judgment for the Indians where it is found 'that any lands formerly belonging' to them 'have been taken by the United States without compensation * * *.'

Petitioners contend here that their predecessors understood that they not only owned the White River Valley lands, but that they also owned the Executive Order lands when, in 1880, they agreed to cede their reservation; and that Congress, by incorporating the agreement in the 1880 Act, thereby ratified it along with the Indians' understanding of it. Petitioners further contend that whether or not Congress intended to obligate the Government to account for the Executive Order lands, they knew of the Indians' understanding so that 'the understanding of the Indians having been established,' their understanding entitles them to recover. Finally they argue that the Executive Order unlike the one in issue in Sioux Tribe of Indians v. United States, 316 U.S. 317, 62 S.Ct. 1095, 86 L.Ed. 1501, conveyed a compensable interest to these Indians. The Government counters that the President had no power to give a compensable interest to the Indians to lands lying outside the true 1868 treaty boundaries; that if the President intended to make available lands outside the true boundary it was only to give a transitory, possessory, and not a compensable, interest; that his intent was, in fact, only to secure the Indians in their possession of the White River Valley, but no more, on the mistaken assumption that the White River Valley had been cut off from the reservation by the Miller survey; that the 1880 Act, neither by its terms, its legislative history, nor its administrative interpretation, suggests that Congress intended to ratify or expand the Executive Order or to compensate the Indians for the Executive Order lands; that the Indians did not have a contrary understanding; that in the face of such clear legislative language and intent, a contrary understanding of the Indians, even if established, could not justify a holding that the Indians obtained a compensable interest.

It is conceded that the petitioners have either been, or are currently pressing litigation in the Court of Claims by which they seek to be, compensated for the White River Valley lands, and in fact, for all of the land which was contained in the true boundaries of the 1868 reservation. The additional claim, insofar as it rests on the Executive Order of 1875, cannot be sustained. For the President had no authority to convey to the petitioners a compensable interest in the lands described in the order lying...