Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States

A recognized Indian title is compensable when Congress, by treaty, statute, or authorized agreement, has plainly established that Indians may hold particular lands permanently. Congressional recognition need not take one rigid form, but it must show a definite intent to confer legal rights rather than merely allow continued occupation.

Section 8 of the 1884 Organic Act said that Alaska Natives would not be disturbed in lands they used, occupied, or claimed, while reserving for future legislation the terms on which they could acquire title. The Court read this language, together with its legislative history, as maintaining the status quo until Congress or the courts took further action—not as granting permanent title.

The 1900 Act likewise protected Indians from disturbance in lands actually used or occupied, but did not confer ownership. The 1947 Joint Resolution reinforced this conclusion: it authorized timber sales despite asserted possessory rights and expressly stated that it neither recognized nor denied the validity of those claims. None of these enactments supplied the required congressional recognition.

The Court relied on the traditional doctrine of discovery and conquest, especially Johnson v. M'Intosh. Under that doctrine, the sovereign holds ultimate title and exclusive authority to extinguish Indian occupancy, whether by purchase, treaty, or other governmental action. Indian occupancy is protected against private intrusion, but remains subject to termination by the sovereign.

Prior decisions treated Congress's power to extinguish unrecognized Indian title as plenary and political rather than judicially enforceable. The Court distinguished cases requiring payment for land held under recognized Indian title, such as reservations or treaty-guaranteed lands, because those cases involved a legal interest affirmatively acknowledged by the United States.

The Court also rejected the claim that United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks established a constitutional right to payment for unrecognized title. It understood the Tillamook recovery as resting on a special jurisdictional statute directing payment for specified tribes, not on the Fifth Amendment. The later Tillamook decision, which denied Fifth Amendment interest, confirmed that understanding.

Accordingly, the absence of compensation did not rest on a lack of tribal standing or on sovereign immunity. Rather, the Tee-Hit-Tons' unrecognized occupancy created no property right that the Fifth Amendment required the United States to compensate when it authorized the timber sale.

The Tee-Hit-Tons argued that the Tlingits had a developed social order and a genuine concept of property, and that Russian rule had not displaced their land claims. The Court concluded that the record did not show a Russian approach materially different from the American sovereign's treatment of Indian lands: Native peoples retained use of broad territories, but Russia took land needed for itself or its licensees.

The evidence showed tribal, rather than individual, use of a large hunting and fishing territory. Members could use a particular area while they were actively using it, but another member could use it once that use ceased. Villages and shelters shifted with fishing and hunting conditions, while related Tlingit groups also permitted one another to use their lands.

The Court accepted the Court of Claims' factual conclusion that this pattern resembled the use of territory by hunting and fishing tribes elsewhere in the United States. Thus, regardless of the Tee-Hit-Tons' asserted customary property practices, their claim remained one of unrecognized aboriginal occupancy, which Congress could extinguish without constitutional compensation.