Indians v. United States

• Decision Date: 07 February 1955
• Docket Number: TEE-HIT-TON,No. 43,43
• Parties: TheINDIANS, An Identifiable Group of Alaska Indians, Petitioner, v. The UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

348 U.S. 272

75 S.Ct. 313

99 L.Ed. 314

The TEE-HIT-TON INDIANS, An Identifiable Group of Alaska Indians, Petitioner,

v The UNITED STATES.

No. 43.

Argued Nov. 12, 1954.

Decided Feb. 7, 1955.

Rehearing Denied March 14, 1955.

See 348 U.S. 965, 75 S.Ct. 521 Mr.James Craig Peacock, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Ralph A. Barney, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice REED delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case rests upon a claim under the Fifth Amendment by petitioner, an identifiable group of American Indians of between 60 and 70 individuals residing in Alaska, for compensation for a taking by the United States of certain timber from Alaskan lands allegedly belonging to the group.¹ The area claimed is said to contain over 350,000 acres of land and 150 square miles of water. The Tee-Hit-Tons, a clan of the Tlingit Tribe, brought this suit in the Court of Claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1505, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1505. The compensation claimed does not arise from any statutory direction to pay. Payment, if it can be compelled, must be based upon a constitutional right of the Indians to recover. This is not a case that is connected with any phase of the policy of the Congress, continued throughout our history, to extinguish Indian title through negotiation rather than by force, and to grant payments from the public purse to needy descendants of exploited Indians. The legislation in support of that policy has received consistent interpretation from this Court in sympathy with its compassionate purpose.²

Upon petitioner's motion, the Court of Claims under its Rule 38(b), 28 U.S.C.A.,³ directed a separate trial with respect to certain specific issues of law and any related issues of fact essential to the proper adjudication of the legal issues.⁴ Only those pertinent to the nature of the petitioner's interest, if any, in the lands are here for review. Substan- tial evidence, largely documentary, relevant to these legal issues was introduced by both parties before a Commissioner who thereupon made findings of fact. The Court of Claims adopted these findings and held that petitioner was an identifiable group of American Indians residing in Alaska; that its interest in the lands prior to purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867 was "original Indian title" or "Indian right of occupancy". Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 120 F.Supp. 202, 204, 128 Ct.Cl. 82, 85, 87. It was further held that if such original Indian title survived the Treaty of 1867, 15 Stat. 539, Arts. III and VI, by which Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States, such title was not sufficient basis to maintain this suit as there had been no recognition by Congress of any legal rights in petitioner to the land in question. 120 F.Supp. 202, 128 Ct.Cl. at page 92. The court said that no rights inured to plaintiff by virtue of legislation by Congress. As a result of these conclusions, no answer was necessary to questions 2, 5 and 6. The Tee-Hit-Tons' petition was thereafter dismissed.

Because of general agreement as to the importance of the question of compensation for congressionally approved taking of lands occupied in Alaska under aboriginal Indian use and claim of ownership,⁵ and the conflict concerning the effect of federal legislation protecting Indian occupation between this decision of the Court of Claims, 120 F.Supp. 202, 128 Ct.Cl., at page 90, and the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Miller v. United States, 159 F.2d 997, 1003, we granted certiorari, 347 U.S. 1009, 74 S.Ct. 864, 98 L.Ed. 1133.

The Alaskan area in which petitioner claims a compensable interest is located near and within the exterior lines of the Tongass National Forest. By Joint Resolution of August 8, 1947, 61 Stat. 920, the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized to contract for the sale of national forest timber located within this National Forest 'notwithstanding any claim of possessory rights.'⁶ The Resolution defines 'possessory rights'⁷ and provides for all receipts from the sale of timber to be maintained in a special account in the Treasury until the timber and land rights are finally determined.⁸

Section 3(b) of the Resolution provides:

'Nothing in this resolution shall be construed as recognizing or denying the validity of any claims of possessory rights to lands or timber within the exterior boundaries of the Tongass National Forest.'

The Secretary of Agriculture, on August 20, 1951, pursuant to this authority contracted for sale to a private company of all merchantable timber in the area claimed by petitioner. This is the sale of timber which peti- tioner alleges constitutes a compensable taking by the United States of a portion of its proprietary interest in the land.

The problem presented is the nature of the petitioner's interest in the land, if any. Petitioner claims a 'full proprietary ownership' of the land; or, in the alternative, at least a 'recognized' right to unrestricted possession, occupation and use. Either ownership or recognized possession, petitioner asserts, is compensable. If it has a fee simple interest in the entire tract, it has an interest in the timber and its sale is a partial taking of its right to 'possess, use and dispose of it.' United States v. General Motors, 323 U.S. 373, 378, 65 S.Ct. 357, 359, 89 L.Ed. 311. It is petitioner's contention that its tribal predecessors have continually claimed, occupied and used the land from time immemorial; that when Russia took Alaska, the Tlingits had a well-developed social order which included a concept of property ownership; that Russia while it possessed Alaska in no manner interfered with their claim to the land; that Congress has by subsequent acts confirmed and recognized petitioner's right to occupy the land permanently and therefore the sale of the timber off such lands constitutes a taking pro tanto of its asserted rights in the area.

The Government denies that petitioner has any compensable interest. It asserts that the Tee-Hit-Tons' property interest, if any, is merely that of the right to the use of the land at the Government's will; that Congress has never recognized any legal interest of petitioner in the land and therefore without such recognition no compensation is due the petitioner for any taking by the United States.

I. Recognition.—The question of recognition may be disposed of shortly. Where the Congress by treaty or other agreement has declared that thereafter Indians were to hold the lands permanently, compensation must be paid for subsequent taking.⁹ The petitioner contends that Congress has sufficiently 'recognized' its possessory rights in the land in question so as to make its interest compensable. Petitioner points specifically to two statutes to sustain this contention. The first is § 8 of the Organic Act for Alaska of May 17, 1884, 23 Stat. 24.¹⁰ The second is § 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900, which was to provide for a civil government for Alaska, 31 Stat. 321, 330. ¹¹ The Court of Appeals in the Miller case, supra, felt that these Acts constituted recognition of Indian ownership. 159 F.2d 997, 1002—1003.

We have carefully examined these statutes and the pertinent legislative history and find nothing to indicate any intention by Congress to grant to the Indians any permanent rights in the lands of Alaska occupied by them by permission of Congress. Rather, it clearly appears that what was intended was merely to retain the status quo until further congressional or judicial action was taken.¹² There is no particular form for congressional recognition of Indian right of permanent occupancy. It may be established in a variety of ways but there must be the definite intention by congressional action or authority to accord legal rights, not merely permissive occupation. Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U.S. 86, 101, 69 S.Ct. 968, 978, 93 L.Ed. 1231.

This policy of Congress toward the Alaskan Indian lands was maintained and reflected by its expression in the Joint Resolution of 1947 under which the timber contracts were made.¹³

II. Indian Title.—(a) The nature of aboriginal Indian interest in land and the various rights as between the Indians and the United States dependent on such interest are far from novel as concerns our Indian inhabitants. It is well settled that in all the States of the Union the tribes who inhabited the lands of the States held claim to such lands after the coming of the white man, under what is sometimes termed original Indian title or permission from the whites to occupy. That description means mere possession not specifically recognized as ownership by Congress. After conquest they were permitted to occupy portions of territory over which they had previously exercised 'sovereignty,' as we use that term. This is not a property right but amounts to a right of occupancy which the sovereign grants and protects against intrusion by third parties but which right of occupancy may be terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without any legally enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.

This position of the Indian has long been rationalized by the legal theory that discovery and conquest gave the conquerors sovereignty over and ownership of the lands thus obtained. 1 Wheaton's International Law, c. V. The great case of Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 5 L.Ed. 681, denied the power of an Indian tribe to pass their right of occupancy to another. It confirmed the practice of two hundred years of American history 'that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest.' 8 Wheat. at page 587.

'We will not enter into the controversy, whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers, have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and...