United States v. Winans

Appellant
United States
Appellee
A commercial fishing company
Appellant's Claim
That the fishing company, by putting in place a device known as a fishing wheel and by other forceful means, had deprived the Yakima Indian tribe of its rights to fish in its traditional spot on the Columbia River as per a treaty signed with the United States government during the nineteenth century.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Henry M. Hoyt, U.S. Solicitor General
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Charles H. Carey
Justices for the Court
David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, William Rufus Day, Melville WestonFuller, John Marshall Harlan I, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna (writing for the Court), Rufus Wheeler Peckham
Justices Dissenting
Edward Douglass White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
15 May 1906
Decision
That the treaty takes precedent over state law, that the fishing wheel did displace the Native Americans from their rightful fishing spot. Remanded to thecircuit court to determine the method of reconciling Native Americans' rights to fish in the area in question with the respondents' state-granted right to operate a fishing wheel.
Significance
Determined that private ownership of land did not preclude Native Americans from gaining access to waters which were adjacent to that land. Also, affirmedthe notion that states reserve the right to regulate off-reservation fishingrights.
In the long history of American jurisprudence, few disputes have found themselves in the courts more often than the fishing rights of the Yakima Indians,and Native American fishing rights in the state of Washington in general. Thecontinuing dispute has led to numerous court battles, as well as hard feelings and even violent confrontations since a series of treaties were signed inthe middle of the nineteenth century. Landmark decisions concerning these controversies have been rare, but rather the various decisions over the years have served more as links in a chain, coming together to sort out the confusionwhich marks the fight over Native American rights, treaty interpretation, private interests and state jurisdiction. One such case is United States v.Winans.
Around 1859, Isaac Stevens, the first governor of the Washington Territory, signed treaties with 17,000 Native Americans in the territory. Because Washington was still a territory at that time, Stevens was an officer of the federalgovernment and not of the state of Washington, which did not as yet exist. The treaties called for the Native Americans, including the Yakimas, to give up claim to their lands and remove themselves to reservations and granted Native Americans the right to continue to fish unmolested in their "usual and accustomed places." For the Yakimas, this included a particular spot on the Columbia River.
When the Western states came into existence, they often were reluctant to recognize the treaty rights which had been vested in the Native Americans by thefederal government. Native Americans were often forced to turn to the courtsfor relief, and the courts could not always be counted on to apply the treaty rights. Rulings were sometimes handed down that state laws superseded treaties made by the federal government, or that such treaties became defunct oncestates came into being. This was despite the fact that when the treaties were made, the understanding was that they were treaties between two sovereign powers, no different than a treaty made between the United States and a country such as France or Bolivia.
Very early in the twentieth century a private commercial fishing company heldtitle to the land adjacent to the Yakimas' "usual and accustomed place" forfishing on the Columbia River. The company did not want the Yakimas to traverse its land en route to the river, which the Native Americans had no choice but to do. The company also received a license from the state to put up a fishing wheel, a large device which captures large numbers of fish. The device was located as such that it prevented the Yakimas from using their historical spot. They tried to gain relief from the circuit court in Washington, but their request was thrown out. That court essentially found that the Yakimas' treaty with the federal government guaranteed them little if anything in off-reservation fishing rights and said that the company was within its rights to keep the Native Americans off its lands and install the fishing wheel, and the Yakimas were entitled to no protection.
When the case found its way to the Supreme Court in 1905, Henry Hoyt, the solicitor general for the United States, took up the Native Americans' cause inan attempt to enforce its treaty and pleaded before the Court:

The Indian claim is not merely meritorious and equitable; it is an immemorial right, like a ripened prescription . . . A decree for appellants must considerthe reasonable rights of both parties; restricting the fish wheels if they can be maintained at all, as to their number, method and daily hours of operation. Nor can the Indians claim an exclusive right, and it may be just to restrict them in reasonable ways as to times and modes of access to the propertyand their hours of fishing. But by some proper route, following the old trails, and at proper hours, with due protection for the defendants' buildings, stock and crops, free ingress to and egress from the fishing grounds should beopen to the Indians, and be kept open.

The defendants countered by arguing that their ownership of the land was valid in every way and should not be compromised by the treaty. They said that the fishing wheel was merely a more modern and effective method of doing what the Native Americans had always done by more primitive methods, and claimed use of modern technology should not be held against them.
Court Sides with the Yakimas
The Supreme Court sided with the Native Americans on all the major points. Asto the question of what the treaty entitled the Native Americans to in regards to off-reservation fishing rights, the Court soundly rebuked the opinion of the lower court:

It was decided that the Indians acquired no rights but what any inhabitant of the territory or state would have. Indeed, acquired no rights but such as they would have without the treaty. This is certainly an impotent outcome to negotiations and a convention, which seemed to promise more and give the word of the Nation for more.

The Court also ruled that the Native Americans had a right to traverse the land--even if privately owned--which needed to be crossed to reach their fishing spot:

The contingency of the future ownership of the lands, therefore, was foreseen and provided for--in other words, the Indians were givena right in the land--the right of crossing it to the river--the right to occupy it for the extent and for the purpose mentioned. No other conclusion would give effect to the treaty. And the right was intended to be continuing against the United States and its grantees as well as against the state and its grantees.

The Court also decided that the use of fishing wheels under the existing circumstances deprived the Native Americans from exercising their treaty right. It did not, however, ban the use of the devices entirely, but remanded the issue to the circuit court for further consideration. Justice McKenna wrote:

The respondents urge an argument based on the different capacities of white men and Indians to devise and make use of instrumentalities to enjoythe common right . . . But the result does not follow that the Indians may beabsolutely excluded . . . In the actual taking of fish white men may not beconfined to a spear or crude net, but it does not follow that they may construct and use a device which gives them exclusive possession of the fishing places, as it is admitted a fish wheel does.

One passage in the opinion, however, was later used to construct arguments opposed to off-reservation fishing rights. Near the end of the opinion, JusticeMcKenna wrote: "It was within the competency of the nation to secure to theIndians such a remnant of the great rights they possessed as `taking fish atall usual and accustomed places.' Nor does it restrain the state unreasonably, if at all, in the regulation of the right." This was later used as a precedent to demonstrate that state regulation of off-reservation fishing rights was justifiable. Typically in the long dispute over the issue, the United States v. Winans decision had something for both sides to take both solaceand defeat in.
Related Cases

• Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. Thompson, WL 797196 (7th Cir. [Wis.] 1998).