Jones v. Meehan

What happened

In article 9 of the treaty made at the Old Crossing of Red Lake River on October 2, 1863, between the United States and the Red Lake and Pembina bands of Chippewa, the bands ceded a large tract of country. The treaty provided that "there shall be set apart from the tract hereby ceded a reservation of six hundred and forty acres near the mouth of the Thief River for the chief Moose Dung."

The elder Moose Dung lived on that land at the mouth of Thief River. He died in 1872, before the land was surveyed, and his eldest son, Moose Dung the younger, succeeded him as chief. In 1891 the younger Moose Dung leased a strip of the land to Patrick and James Meehan for ten years. Ray Jones claimed under a later lease. On August 4, 1894, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to approve it, and the Secretary did so on December 27, 1894. The Meehans sued Jones to quiet title.

The Supreme Court affirmed for the Meehans. When a treaty reserves land for a chief, it held, the treaty itself converts the land into individual property: "equivalent to a present grant of a complete title in fee simple," unless the treaty limits it. Treaties with tribes are read in the sense in which "they would naturally be understood by the Indians." Inheritance of the land was controlled by the tribe's laws, usages and customs, not state law or the Secretary of the Interior, so it passed to the eldest son.

The 1894 resolution and the Interior Department's later action could not divest rights already acquired under the lease.

Summarized with AI assistance from 3 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error