United States v. Bowling

• Decision Date: 01 June 1921
• Docket Number: No. 295,295
• Citation: 65 L.Ed. 1054,41 S.Ct. 561,256 U.S. 484
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. BOWLING et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

256 U.S. 484

41 S.Ct. 561

65 L.Ed. 1054

UNITED STATES

v BOWLING et al.

No. 295.

Argued April 27, 1921.

Decided June 1, 1921.

Mr. Leslie C. Garnett, of Washington, D. C., for the United states.

Mr. Halbert H. McCluer, of Kansas City, Mo., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was an action by the United States to recover the possession of a tract of land in Oklahoma, with damages for its detention and use by the defendants for several years. The trial resulted in a judgment for the defendants, which the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 261 Fed. 657.

The land was allotted and patented under the Act of March 2, 1889, c. 422, 25 Stat. 1013, to Pe-te-lon-o-zah, or William Wea, a member of the Confederated Wea, Peoria, Kaskaskia, and Piankeshaw Tribes of Indians, as his distributive share of the tribal lands. The patent was dated April 8, 1890, conveyed a fee-simple title and imposed a restriction upon alienation for a period of 25 years from its date. Wea died intestate and seized of the land January 23, 1894. Shortly after his death persons claiming to be his heirs executed a conveyance of the land, and on May 4, 1914, this court affirmed a decree against two of the present defendants, canceling that conveyance as made in violation of the restriction. Bowling v. United States, 233 U. S. 528, 34 Sup. Ct. 659, 58 L. Ed. 1080.

This action was commenced January 20, 1915, during the period of restriction, and, according to the petition, was brought in the interest of designated Indians who were alleged to be the heirs at law of Wea, to be entitled to the possession, and to be members of the confederated tribes and still under the supervision and guardianship of the United States. The defendants, by their answer, admitted that the land had been allotted and patented to Wea and that they were in possession; denied all the other allegations in the petition, including the heirship of those in whose interest the action was brought; and alleged that at the time of answering the defendants were rightfully in possession under conveyances executed by the real heirs after the restriction upon alienation expired.

At the trial the United States, to establish the heirship of those in whose interest the action was brought, offered in evidence an exemplified copy of a decision by the Secretary of the Interior, dated October 21, 1914, during the period of restriction, finding and holding that they were the heirs, and the sole heirs, of Wea, and stating their respective shares. To this the defendants objected upon the ground that the law of Congress under which the decision was given applied only where the deceased allottee held under a trust patent. The court sustained the objection and no other evidence on the subject was presented by either side. Whether the court erred in excluding the Secretary's determination is the only question reserved at the trial and now presented for decision. It was not claimed that the Secretary proceeded without notice or without according all who were interested a full hearing, but only that he had not been empowered to determine who were the heirs where the deceased allottee held, as did Wea, under a patent in fee, even though the land was subject to a restriction upon alienation.

Before coming to the acts under which the Secretary of the Interior proceeded, it will be helpful to refer to the modes, long in use, by which Indians are prevented from improvidently disposing of allotted lands. One is to issue to the allottee a written instrument or certificate, called a trust patent, declaring that the United States will hold the land for a designated period, usually 25 years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the allottee, or, in case of his death, of his heirs, and at the expiration of that period will convey the same to him, or his heirs, in fee, discharged of the trust and free of all charge or incumbrance. The other is to issue at once to the allottee a patent conveying to him the land in fee and imposing a restriction upon its alienation for 25 years or some other stated period. While alienation is effectually restricted by either mode, allotments under the first are commonly spoken of as trust allotments and those under the second as restricted allotments. As respects both classes of allotments—one as much as the other—the United States possesses a supervisory control over the land and may take appropriate measures to make sure that it inures to the sole use and benefit of the allottee and his heirs throughout the original or any extended period of restriction.¹ As an incident to this power Congress may authorize and require the Secretary of the Interior to determine the legal heirs of a deceased allottee and may make that determination final and conclusive.² It rests with Congress to say which of the two modes shall be followed in respect of the lands of a particular tribe, and this usually is done in the act directing that the lands be allotted. The act of 1889, under which the lands of the confederated tribes were allotted, required that the second mode be following—that of issuing a patent in fee imposing a restriction upon alienation for a fixed period.

By section 1 of the Act of June 25, 1910, c. 431, 36 Stat. 855 (Comp. St. § 4226), Congress provided:

'That when any Indian to whom an allotment of land has been made, or may hereafter be made, dies before the expiration of the trust period and before the issuance of a...