United States v. Arenas

• Decision Date: 14 January 1947
• Docket Number: No. 11195.,11195.
• Citation: 158 F.2d 730
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. ARENAS.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

158 F.2d 730 (1946)

UNITED STATES v. ARENAS.

No. 11195.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

December 12, 1946.

Rehearing Denied January 14, 1947.

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David L. Bazelon, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Roger P. Marquis and Dwight Doty, Attys., Dept. of Justice, both of Washington, D. C., and Eugene D. Williams, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

John W. Preston, Oliver O. Clark, David D. Sallee, and Robert A. Smith, all of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.

Before GARRECHT, MATHEWS, and HEALY, Circuit Judges.

GARRECHT, Circuit Judge.

As the appellant itself suggests, the Supreme Court, in an opinion rendered at an earlier stage of the present litigation, has "pointed the way * * * for a decision on the full record which is now before this Court."

Accordingly, we will set out herein, in italics, the "signposts" of law and of fact contained in the opinion to which the appellant refers — Arenas v. United States, 322 U.S. 419, 64 S.Ct. 1090, 88 L.Ed. 1363. We will supplement the Supreme Court's outline with material developed or suggested by the "full record" presented when the same case was again heard in the court below.¹ D.C., 60 F.Supp. 411.

We shall find that, almost paragraph by paragraph, the Supreme Court's opinion charts the course that we must follow here.

"The petitioner Arenas is a full-blood Mission Indian, regularly enrolled in the Agua Caliente or Palm Springs Band. He sued in the United States District Court to be awarded a trust patent to certain lands on the Palm Springs Reservation." 322 U.S. at page 420, 64 S.Ct. at page 1090, 88 L.Ed. 1363.

In the instant case, the appellee is suing for allotment trust patents in his own name and as sole heir at law and next of kin of Guadaloupe Arenas, his wife, who died on March 26, 1937; his father, Francisco Arenas, who died on October 4, 1924; and his brother, Simon Arenas, who died on February 18, 1925. R. 10, 14, 19, 24-26, 49 "For a long period Congress pursued the policy of imposing, as rapidly as possible, our system of individual land tenure on the Indian. To this end tribal or communal land holdings of the Indians were superseded by allotment to individuals, who were protected against improvidence by restraints on alienation. The Mission Indians had deserved well and had fared badly and Congress passed the Mission Indian Act of Jan. 12, 1891 for their particular redress." 322 U.S. at pages 420, 421, 64 S.Ct. at page 1090, 88 L.Ed. 1363.

In support of its statement that the Mission Indians "had deserved well and had fared badly," the Supreme Court cites Sen. Rep.No. 74, 50th Cong., 1st Sess. In that report, the Senate Committee began its recommendation of the passage of the Mission Indian Act in the following words:

"The history of the Mission Indians for a century may be written in four words: conversion, civilization, neglect, outrage. The conversion and civilization were the work of the mission fathers previous to our acquisition of California; the neglect and outrage have been mainly our own. Justice and humanity alike demand the immediate action of the Government to preserve for their occupation the fragments of land not already taken from them."

In this same Senate document is embodied the report of the Mission Indian Commission appointment by the Government to make an investigation into the condition of these Indians. In the latter report, dated July 13, 1884, we find the following account of the red man's burden in Southern California:

"From tract after tract of such lands they have been driven out, year by year, by the white settlers of the country, until they can retreat no farther; some of their villages being literally in the last tillable spot on the desert's edge or in the mountain fastnesses. Yet there are in southern California today many fertile valleys, which only thirty years ago were like garden spots with these same Indians' wheat fields, orchards, and vineyards. Now there is left in these valleys no trace of the Indians' occupation, except the ruins of their adobe houses; in some instances these houses, still standing, are occupied by the robber whites who drove them out.

* * * * * *

"* * * It is certain that in the case of these Mission Indians the rights involved are quite different from and superior to the mere `occupancy' rights of the wild and uncivilized Indian."

The record in the instant case further buttresses the Supreme Court's statement. In a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, dated December 13, 1944, and introduced by the appellant itself, the following language appears:

"The Indians prospered under the guidance and tutelage of the missionaries, but the Franciscan Fathers failed to secure for the Indians vested rights in the lands they were using and occupying. As the lands became more valuable they were coveted by non-Indians. In 1822 Mexico, under whose rule California fell, made private grants of the more valuable of the Indian lands and through what is known as the Secularization Act provided a method for disposing of additional Indian lands as well as of the vast herds of cattle, sheep and horses owned by the Indians. Eventually the Indians were reduced to pauperism and beggary. Nevertheless when the Indians came under the sovereignty of the United States in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 9 Stat. 922, they still retained some rights with respect to the land they occupied outside of the private grants. But the Indians did not remain undisturbed in this occupancy after the discovery of gold in California. They were driven from their land, robbed of their property and many of them murdered. In these circumstances the Indians settled where they could. They became occupants by sufferance on private lands, State lands and railroad grant lands. Some of them resided on land set aside by various Executive orders dating from 1875.

"To remedy the plight of the Indians by securing to them their remaining land rights and by providing permanent homes, Congress passed the Mission Indian Act of January 12, 1891, (26 Stat. 712) * * *." R. 304-305 From the foregoing excerpts, it will be seen that, at least up to the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Mission Indians literally "dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree." 1 Kings 4:25. But after 1822, and particularly after California was admitted into the Union in 1850, it could be well said of the grape and fig and date lands of the Mission Indians: "The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the palm tree * * * even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men." Joel 1:12.

The Supreme Court opinion continues its narrative of the legislative and administrative history pertinent to the instant case, taking up first the Mission Indian Act:

"The first three sections of this Act set up a commission to settle these several bands on suitable reservations and directed that appropriate patents issue. The United States was to hold the titles in trust, however, for twenty-five years and then was to convey to the tribes any portions not previously patented in severalty to members. Several reservations were set apart, including one at Palm Springs, with which this and the St. Marie case² were concerned.

"The Act also provided in § 4 that whenever in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior any of the Indians should `be so advanced in civilization as to be capable of owning and managing land in severalty, the Secretary of the Interior may cause allotments to be made to such Indians, out of the land of such reservation' and it specified the acreage to be allotted to each. Section 5 provided that on approval of the allotments the Secretary should cause patents to issue in the name of the allottees. For twenty-five years the lands were to remain in trust for their benefit and then were to be conveyed in fee free of the trust."

In a footnote, the court quotes Sections 4 and 5 of the Act, as follows:

"`Sec. 4. That whenever any of the Indians residing upon any reservation patented under the provisions of this act shall, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior, be so advanced in civilization as to be capable of owning and managing land in severalty, the Secretary of the Interior may cause allotments to be made to such Indians, out of the land of such reservation, in quantity as follows: To each head of a family not more than six hundred and forty acres nor less than one hundred and sixty acres of pasture or grazing land, and in addition thereto not exceeding twenty acres, as he shall deem for the best interest of the allottee, of arable land in some suitable locality; to each single person over twenty-one years of age not less than eighty nor more than six hundred and forty acres of pasture or grazing land and not exceeding ten acres of such arable land.

"`Sec. 5. That upon the approval of the allotments provided for in the preceding section by the Secretary of the Interior he shall cause patents to issue therefor in the name of the allottees, which shall be of the legal effect and declare that the United States does and will hold the land thus allotted for the period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made, or, in case of his decease, of his heirs according to the laws of the State of California, and that at the expiration of said period the United States will convey the same by patent to the said Indian, or his heirs as aforesaid, in fee, discharged of said trust and free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever. And if any conveyance shall be made of the lands set apart and allotted as herein provided, or any contract made touching the same, before the expiration of the time above mentioned, such conveyance or contract shall be absolutely null and void: Provided, That these patents, when...