United States v. Winans - Significance, Court Sides With The Yakimas

fishing indian appellant wheel

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 Weston Fuller, 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 the circuit 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.

Related Cases

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

United States v. Winans - Significance

Determined that private ownership of land did not preclude Native Americans from gaining access to waters which were adjacent to that land. Also, affirmed the notion that states reserve the right to regulate off-reservation fishing rights. 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 Na…

United States v. Winans - Court Sides With The Yakimas

The Supreme Court sided with the Native Americans on all the major points. As to 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 a…

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