United States v. Winans

What happened

In a treaty between the United States and the Yakima Nation, the confederated tribes and bands ceded the lands they occupied. They kept a reservation and reserved "the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with citizens of the Territory," along with the right to erect temporary buildings for curing the fish. The treaty was signed on June 9, 1855 and ratified and proclaimed in 1859 (12 Stat. 951). The Supreme Court's opinion refers to it as the treaty "made in 1859."

The United States sued to stop Winans and other landowners from obstructing Yakima Indians from fishing on the Columbia River in Washington. The respondents held land along the river under federal patents and state grants, and had state licenses to maintain fish wheels. They argued the treaty gave the Indians only the rights a white man would have under the conditions of land ownership along the river.

On May 15, 1905, Justice McKenna wrote for the Court that it would "construe a treaty with Indians as they understood it" and as justice and reason demand. The fishing right, the Court said, was a "reservation by the Indians of rights already possessed and not granted away by them," not a grant to them.

The Court held that the reserved rights imposed a servitude on the entire land relinquished to the United States, continuing against the United States and its grantees and against the State and its grantees. After admission to the Union, it said, Washington could not disregard the right on the ground of its equal footing with the original States.

Good to know. The opinion calls it 'the treaty of 1859'; the treaty was signed June 9, 1855 and ratified and proclaimed in 1859.

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