United States V. Winans - Legal Analysis

Legal Analysis

The Court looked at the substance of the treaty and construed the disputed language as “that unlettered people understood it". In examining the negotiations with the Yakama nation, which was the largest of the Indian tribes, the District Court found that, "At the treaty council the United States negotiators promised, and the Indians understood, that the Yakamas would forever be able to continue the same off-reservation food gathering and fishing practices as to time, place, method, species and extent as they had or were exercising." In writing for the majority, Justice McKenna stated that a “Treaty between the United States and the Indians... is not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them—a reservation of those granted." This established for the first time the so-called "reserved rights" doctrine in American Indian law. The Court noted the historical and traditional importance of fishing and hunting to the Indians, and viewed these rights as part of a larger bundle of rights preserved under the treaty.

The Court observed that the treaty foresaw the contingency of future ownership, and secured the Indians’ rights and privileges both against the United States and its grantees and against the state and its grantees. Therefore, the grant of a license to operate a fish wheel gave the respondents no power to exclude the Indians from fishing. In other words, the State of Washington could not use common law property rights to absolutely exclude the Indians from fishing on the Columbia River.

Relying on its earlier decision in Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1 (1894), the Court also dismissed the argument that the Indians’ treaty rights were subordinate to the powers acquired by the state upon its entry into the Union. The Court upheld the Indians' right of access to respondent's private property, thus protecting their privileges under the treaty.