Indian Law – Reservation of Boundaries

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Supreme Court of the United States

Case Name: Nebraska v. Parker

Case No.: 14-1406

Focus: Indian Law – Reservation of Boundaries

The 1882 Act did not diminish the Omaha Indian Reservation

“Only Congress may diminish the boundaries of an Indian reservation, and its intent to do so must be clear. Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U. S. 463, 470. This Court’s framework for determining whether an Indian reservation has been diminished is well settled and starts with the statutory text. Hagen v. Utah, 510 U. S. 399, 411. Here, the 1882 Act bears none of the common textual indications that express such clear intent, e.g., “[e]xplicit reference to cession or other language evidencing the present and total surrender of all tribal interests” or “an unconditional commitment from Congress to compensate the Indian tribe for its opened land,” Solem, supra, at 470. The Act’s language opening the land “for settlement under such rules and regulations as [the Secretary] may prescribe,” 22 Stat. 341, falls into a category of surplus land acts that “merely opened reservation land to settlement,” DeCoteau v. District County Court for Tenth Judicial Dist., 420 U. S. 425, 448. A comparison of the text of the 1854 and 1865 treaties, which unequivocally terminated the Tribe’s jurisdiction over its land, with the 1882 Act confirms this conclusion.”

Affirmed

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