Wilbur v. United States Kadrie
| Decision Date | 14 April 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 77,77 |
| Citation | 50 S.Ct. 320,74 L.Ed. 809,281 U.S. 206 |
| Parties | WILBUR, Secretary of the Interior, v. UNITED STATES ex rel. KADRIE et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
The Attorney General, and Mr. Richardson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.
Mr. Webster Ballinger, of Washington, D. C., for respondents.
This is a petition for a writ of mandamus commanding the Secretary of the Interior to restore the relators to the supplemental rolls of the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota and to apy to each of them a per capita share of all future distributions, whether of interest or principal, made from the fund created under section 7 of the act of January 14, 1889, c. 24, 25 Stat. 642.
The writ was denied by the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, but that ruling was reversed by the Court of Appeals, 58 App. D. C. 365, 30 F.(2d) 989, and the matter is here for review on certiorari.
When the act of 1889 was passed, the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota comprised eleven bands or tribes occupying ten distinct reservations in that state in virtue of treaties or executive orders. Collectively they were regarded as a single tribe, and commonly called Chippewas of Minnesota.1 They numbered about 8,300, and their reservations contained approximately 4,700,000 acres. They were tribal Indians, under the guardianship of the United States, and held their reservations as tribal lands. The act of 1889 was directed to accomplishing their transition from the existing tribal relation and dependent wardship to full individual emancipation with its incident rights and responsibilities; and to that end the act made provision for obtaining, through a commission, a cession of all of their tribal lands, save portions of the White Earth and Red Lake Reservations needed for allotments; for using the unceded lands in making allotments in severalty, which were to be held subject to prescribed restrictions against alienation, incumbrance, and taxation during a period of twenty-five years, or longer, if the President so directed; and for selling the ceded lands and creating with the net proceeds an interest-bearing fund, which was to be held in the United States Treasury and expended for the benefit of the Indians, as will appear later on.
The act required that the cession have the assent of two-thirds of the male adults and have the approval of the President; directed that the commission obtaining the cession make a census roll of each band or tribe as a guide in ascertaining whether the requisite number of Indians assented to the cession and in making contemplated allotments and payments; required, with exceptions not here material, that the Indians other than those on the Red Lake Reservation be removed to the White Earth Reservation, there to receive allotments; and directed that, after the completion of necessary preliminaries, allotments be made to all of the Indians as soon as practicable.
The contemplated cession was obtained from the Indians and was approved by the President, March 4, 1890. The intended census rolls were made and transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior. Several provisions of the act have now been fully executed, and others are still in process of administration. The fund created from the proceeds of the sale of the ceded lands is a large one; and the relators here are asserting a right to share in all future distributions therefrom.
The provisions governing the creation and use of that fund are embodied in section 7 of the act, and are here quoted at length-those which the parties emphasize being put in italics:
'Sec. 7. That all money accruing from the disposal of said lands in conformity with the provisions of this act shall, after deducting all the expenses of making the census, of obtaining the cession and relinquishment, of making the removal and allotments, and of completing the surveys and appraisals, in this act provided, be placed in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of all the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota as a permanent fund, which shall draw interest at the rate of five per centum per annum, payable annually for the period of fifty years, after the allotments provided for in this act have been made, and which interest and permanent funds shall be expended for the benefit of said Indians in manner following: One-half of said interest shall, during the said period of fifty years, except in the cases hereinafter otherwise provided, be annually paid in cash in equal shares to the heads of families and guardians of orphan minors for their use; and one-fourth of said interest shall, during the same period and with the like exception, be annually paid in cash in equal shares per capita to all other classes of said Indians; and the remaining one-fourth of said interest shall, during the said period of fifty years, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, be devoted exclusively to the establishment and maintenance of a system of free schools among said Indians, in their midst and for their benefit; and at the expiration of the said fity years, the said permanent fund shall be divided and paid to all of said Chippewa Indians and their issue then living, in cash, in equal shares: Provided, That Congress may, in its discretion, from time to time, during the said period of fifty years, appropriate, for the purpose of promoting civilization and self-support among the said Indians, a portion of said principal sum, not exceeding five per centum thereof.
The United States shall, for the benefit of said Indians, advance to them as such interest as aforesaid the sum of ninety thousand dollars annually, counting from the time when the removal and allotments provided for in this act shall have been made, unitl such time as said permanent fund, exclusive of the deductions hereinbefore provided for, shall equal or exceed the sum of three million dollars, less any actual interest that may in the meantime accrue from accumulations of said permanent fund; the payments of such interest to be made yearly in advance, and, in the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, may, as to three-fourths thereof, during the first five years be expended in procuring livestock, teams, farming implements, and seed for such of the Indians to the extent of their shares as are fit and desire to engage in farming, but as to the rest, in cash; and whenever said permanent fund shall exceed the sum of three million dollars the United States shall be fully reimbursed out of such excess, for all the advances of interest made as herein contemplated and other expenses hereunder.'
In the negotiations resulting in the cession the commission construed the clauses providing for annual payments of one-half of the interest 'in equal shares to the heads of families and guardians of orphan minors' and of one-fourth of the Interest 'in equal shares per capita to all other classes of said Indians' as meaning that three-fourths of the interest should be paid annually to the Indians in equal shares per capita; and the Secretary of the Interior, in laying the cession before the President for his approval, pronounced that construction reasonable, and declared it should be adhered to. H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 247, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 5, 6, 24. For several years payments under those clauses were made on that basis. Then the Secretary of the Treasury submitted to the Comptroller the question whether that basis of payment properly could be continued; and the Comptroller, after observing that the clauses were obscurely worded, ruled that the construction given to them by the commission had become the true construction through its adoption in actual practice, and should be respected accordingly. 3 Comp. Dec. 158. All subsequent payments have been made, as the prior ones were, in accordance with that construction.
Manifestly some preliminary steps would need to be taken before the interest annuities could be rightly paid. The number of Indians entitled to participate would need to be ascertained so that the per capita share to be paid to each could be calculated; and those so entitled would need to be listed so that the paying tellers would know whom to pay. From the beginning these practical needs have been met by taking the commission's census rolls as a primary guide, climinating the names of Indians dying after those rolls were made, making supplemental rolls of Indians erroneously omitted from the census rolls and of Indian children entitled to participate but born after the census was taken, and using the two sets of rolls-appropriately brought up to date and made to include only persons in being at the time-as a correct basis for the necessary calculation and listing.
This general statement will open the way for a better appreciation of the special facts and contentions in the present case.
Mary Blair, a full-blood Chippewa woman, was a member of the White Earth band in Minnesota, and as such was included in the census rolls and given an allotment on the White Earth Reservation. Sarah Cogger, a daughter of Mary Blair, is of mixed Chippewa and white blood. She was born in 1892, after the census rolls were made, was enrolled on the supplemental rolls soon after her birth, and was recognized as a member of the White Earth band up to the time of her marriage. In 1909 she was married to Mall Kadrie, a Syrian by birth but a naturalized citizen of the United States. After her marriage she abandoned her tribal relations, and ever since has resided with her huband among white people-for several years in Canada and Syria, and during the later years at International Falls and St. Paul in Minnesota. She was paid a per capita share in all interest annuities distributed after her enrollment and before her abandonment of the tribal relations, and has received a like share in all subsequent annuities-these later payments to her being in accord with the statutes...
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