Miami Tribe of Oklahoma v. United States, 2-58.

• Decision Date: 13 July 1959
• Docket Number: No. 2-58.,2-58.
• Citation: 175 F. Supp. 926
• Parties: MIAMI TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA, also known as the Miami Tribe, et al. and Ira Sylvester Godfroy, et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

175 F. Supp. 926

MIAMI TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA, also known as the Miami Tribe, et al. and Ira Sylvester Godfroy, et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 2-58.

United States Court of Claims.

July 13, 1959.

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Edward P. Morse, Chicago, Ill., for appellants and cross-appellees Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and others. Edwin A. Rothschild, Chicago, Ill., and Louis L. Rochmes, Washington, D. C., were on the briefs.

Walter H. Maloney and James N. Beery, Washington, D. C., filed a brief on behalf of appellants and cross-appellees Ira Sylvester Godfroy and others.

Ralph A. Barney and W. Braxton Miller, Washington, D. C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. Perry W. Morton, for the United States as cross-appellant and appellee.

MADDEN, Judge.

The Indian claimants and the United States have filed cross appeals from a final determination rendered by the Indian Claims Commission in their Docket Nos. 67 and 124. This determination was made in three stages. In its first decision, 2 Ind.Cl.Comm. 617, 645 (March 26, 1954), the Commission held that the Miami Tribe had so-called "recognized" title to 4,291,500 acres of land located in the State of Indiana and ceded to the United States under the Treaty of October 6, 1818, 7 Stat. 189, and that because of such recognition the claimant Indians did not have to prove their exclusive use and occupancy of the land ceded.¹ The Government, defendant below, has appealed from this holding. In its second decision, 4 Ind.Cl.Comm. 346, 408 (September 17, 1956), the Commission found that as of the date the land was ceded to the United States it had a fair market value of 75¢ per acre and the Commission held that because the difference between that value and the purchase price of 6.4¢ per acre paid for the land was an unconscionable discrepancy within the meaning of section 2(3) of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049, 25 U.S.C.A. § 70a(3), the Indian claimants were entitled to a judgment for the difference. The Government has appealed from this decision on the ground that the ultimate finding of 75¢ per acre market value for the land in 1818 is not supported by the primary findings made by the Commission, that some of the primary findings are not supported by substantial evidence, and that on the basis of the record as a whole the Commission could not reasonably have reached a fair market value of more than 20¢ per acre. The Indian claimants have also appealed from this decision on value on the same ground that the ultimate finding of 75¢ per acre market value in 1818 is not supported by any of the primary findings of the Commission, but except for certain findings which the Indian claimants urge are not properly findings at all, the Indian claimants do not attack the correctness of the primary findings but contend that they lead irresistibly to an ultimate finding of market value of the land in an amount in excess of 75¢ per acre. In its third decision relating to offsets, 5 Ind.Cl.Comm. 494, 516 (September 30, 1957) the Commission allowed $280,500 as a "payment on the claim" and the Government has appealed from this decision on the ground that as a matter of law it is entitled to certain additional deductions.

We first turn to the question of whether the Indian Claims Commission erred as a matter of law in holding that the claimant Indians' title to the land ceded to the United States under the 1818 Treaty had been recognized and acknowledged by the United States so that the claimant Indians were not required to prove their exclusive aboriginal use and occupancy of the area from time immemorial down to the time of the 1818 cession.

We shall review the facts on which the Commission based its conclusion that the United States had, prior to the Treaty of 1818, recognized in the claimant Indians their right of permanent use and enjoyment of the land ceded by the Treaty in 1818. Following the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, much of the territory ceded to the United States by Great Britain east of the Mississippi River was occupied by Indian tribes, many of whom were hostile to the United States and far from at peace with each other. It was the desire of the new Government to conciliate these hostile tribes and to bring about a state of peace between the tribes themselves. To both the Indians and the white inhabitants of the United States land was a matter of paramount importance and the settlement of disputes concerning conflicting claims thereto was a continuing concern of Congress. In order to bring about a more tranquil state of affairs between the Indians themselves and between the Indians and the white inhabitants of the United States, the Government negotiated numerous treaties of peace and friendship for the establishment of boundaries between the areas of land occupied and used by the tribes and those areas of land claimed and used by the United States, as well as the establishment of boundaries between the lands claimed and used by the various tribes themselves.

On July 13, 1787, Congress enacted an Ordinance for the Government of the Territories of the United States northwest of the Ohio River known as the Northwest Ordinance. On August 7, 1789, this ordinance was reenacted to adapt its provisions to the Constitution of the United States, 1 Stat. 50. The ordinance printed in the margin of 1 Stat. pp. 50-53 provided for the government of a territory which later became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. In Article III it was provided:

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them."

In 1794, in pursuance of the policy expressed in the above quoted provision of the Northwest Ordinance, General Anthony Wayne was appointed a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the hostile tribes of the Northwest Territory. In his treaty instructions it was emphasized that he should attempt to bring about an agreement concerning a dividing boundary line between lands used and occupied by the Indian tribes in the territory and the lands which belonged to the United States. He was also instructed to establish the boundry lines between the lands owned by the separate tribes in the territory. He was authorized to guarantee to the Indian tribes the right to the soil in the lands owned by them as against any citizens or inhabitant of the United States. During the course of the negotiations with the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatamies, Miamis, Eel River, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankishaws and the Kaskakias, it became apparent that it would not at that time be possible to persuade the tribes to agree to definite boundaries between their separate areas of occupation and accordingly his treaty instructions were altered to permit him to make a single treaty with all of the tribes establishing the overall boundaries of the land owned by all of them without defining inter-tribal boundaries. The treaty was negotiated at Greenville and executed on August 3, 1795. 7 Stat. 49. The purposes of the treaty were declared to be to put an end to destructive warfare, to settle all controversies between the treaty parties, and to restore free intercourse between the Indian tribes and the United States. In Article III of the Treaty of Greenville a general boundary line between the lands agreed to be owned by the United States and the lands agreed to be owned by the Indians was described. This line, known as the Greenville Line of 1795, began at the mouth of the Cayahoga River on Lake Erie at a point in the western part of Ohio where Cleveland is now located. From the mouth of the river the line ran south about 70 miles to Fort Lawrence, Ohio, thence west across the center part of the state to the border of what later became the state of Indiana at Fort Recovery on a branch of the Wabash River. The line then went southwest at a slight angle to the Ohio River on the border between Indiana and Kentucky to a point on that border about 25 miles west of the Ohio state line. In that same article of the treaty the Indian tribes, in consideration of the peace established, of goods already received and to be received thereafter from the United States, and to indemnify the United States for injuries and expenses sustained during their war, ceded and relinquished all of their claims to the land lying to the east and to the south of that line. This cession is identified on Royce's map of Indiana and Ohio as Area 11 and the cession included about two-thirds of the state of Ohio south of the line, and a little less than one-third of the eastern part of that state, plus a narrow triangle of land in eastern Indiana. In addition to this large cession, the tribes ceded to the United States some 16 small tracts of land in Ohio and Indiana which were occupied by various Government installations, and the Indians agreed to allow the people of the United States free passage by land and water through the Indian country lying along the chain of posts included in the 16 small cessions, and the free use of harbors and the mouths of rivers along the lakes adjoining the Indian territories for the shelter of vessels and the landing of cargoes.

In Article IV of the Treaty of Greenville, the United States agreed to relinquish to the Indian signatories to the treaty Indian lands lying north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and west and south of the Great Lakes and the waters uniting them, according to the boundary...