[Facts of the Case: By an act of Congress passed in 1885, certain crimes committed by Indians were brought under the jurisdiction of federal courts. This statute conflicted with claims of sovereignty by both Indian tribes and state governments. It conflicted with Indian sovereignty because it applied to crimes committed by members of the tribe on the reservation, even if the victim was another member of the tribe (such crimes had traditionally been handled internally by the tribe). The statute conflicted with state sovereignty because it asserted federal jurisdiction over crimes committed by Indians against Indians on reservation land within the boundaries of a state. In its ruling, the Court rejected both challenges, validating federal authority over Indian tribes.]

MILLER, J.

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The indictment sets out in two counts that Kagama, alias Pactah Billy, an Indian, murdered Iyouse, alias Ike, another Indian, at Humboldt county, in the state of California, within the limits of the Hoopa Valley reservation, and it charges Mahawaha, alias Ben, also an Indian, with aiding and abetting in the murder.

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The mention of Indians in the constitution which has received most attention is that found in the clause which gives congress 'power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.' …The commerce with foreign nations is distinctly stated as submitted to the control of congress. Were the Indian tribes foreign nations? If so, they came within the first of the three classes of commerce mentioned, and did not need to be repeated as Indian tribes. Were they nations, in the minds of the framers of the constitution? If so, the natural phrase would have been 'foreign nations and Indian nations,' or, in the terseness of language uniformly used by the framers of the instrument, it would naturally have been 'foreign and Indian nations.' And so in the case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, brought in the supreme court of the United States, under the declaration that the judicial power extends to suits between a state and foreign states, and giving to the supreme court original jurisdiction where a state is a party, it was conceded that Georgia as a state came within the clause, but held that the Cherokees were not a state or nation, within the meaning of the constitution, so as to be able to maintain the suit. 5 Pet. 20.

But these Indians are within the geographical limits of the United States. The soil and the people within these limits are under the political control of the government of the United States, or of the states of the Union. There exists within the broad domain of sovereignty but these two. There may be cities, counties, and other organized bodies, with limited legislative functions, but they are all derived from, or exist in, subordination to one or the other of these. The territorial governments owe all their powers to the statutes of the United States conferring on them the powers which they exercise, and which are liable to be withdrawn, modified, or repealed at any time by congress. What authority the state governments may have to enact criminal laws for the Indians will be presently considered. But this power of congress to organize territorial governments, and make laws for their inhabitants, arises, not so much from the clause in the constitution in regard to disposing of and making rules and regulations concerning the territory and other property of the United States, as from the ownership of the country in which the territories are, and the right of exclusive sovereignty which must exist in the national government, and can be found nowhere else. Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 44…

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In the case of U. S. v. Rogers, 4 How. 572, where a white man pleaded in abatement to an indictment for murder, committed in the country of the Cherokee Indians, that he had been adopted by and become a member of the Cherokee tribe, Chief Justice TANEY said: 'The country in which the crime is charged to have been committed is a part of the territory of the United States, and not within the limits of any state. It is true it is occupied by the Cherokee Indians, but it has been assigned to them, and they hold with the assent and under the authority of the United States.' After referring to the policy of the European nations and the United States in asserting dominion over all the country discovered by them, and the justice of this course, he adds: 'But had it been otherwise, and were the right and propriety of exercising this power now open to question, yet it is a question for the law-making and political departments of the government, and not for the judicial. It is our duty to expound and execute the law as we find it, and we think it too firmly and clearly established to admit of dispute, that the Indian tribes, residing within the territorial limits of the United States, are subject to their authority, and when the country occupied by one of them is not within the limits of one of these, congress may by law punish every offense committed there, no matter whether the offender be a white man or an Indian.'

The Indian reservation in the case before us is land bought by the United States from Mexico by the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, and the whole of California, with the allegiance of its inhabitants, many of whom were Indians, was transferred by that treaty to the United States. The relation of the Indian tribes living within the borders of the United States, both before and since the Revolution, to the people of the United States, has always been an anomalous one, and of a complex character. Following the policy of the European governments in the discovery of America, towards the Indians who were found here, the colonies before the Revolution, and the states and the United States since, have recognized in the Indians a possessory right to the soil over which they roamed and hunted and established occasional villages. But they asserted an ultimate title in the land itself, by which the Indian tribes were forbidden to sell or transfer it to other nations or peoples without the consent of this paramount authority. When a tribe wished to dispose of its land, or any part of it, or the state or the United States wished to purchase it, a treaty with the tribe was the only mode in which this could be done. The United States recognized no right in private persons, or in other nations, to make such a purchase by treaty or otherwise. With the Indians themselves these relations are equally difficult to define. They were, and always have been, regarded as having a semi-independent position when they preserved their tribal relations; not as states, not as nations, not as possessed of the full attributes of sovereignty, but as a separate people, with the power of regulating their internal and social relations, and thus far not brought under the laws of the Union or of the state within whose limits they resided.

Perhaps the best statement of their position is found in the two opinions of this court by Chief Justice MARSHALL in the case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, and in the case of Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 536. These opinions are exhaustive; and in the separate opinion of Mr. Justice BALDWIN, in the former, is a very valuable resume of the treaties and statutes concerning the Indian tribes previous to and during the confederation. In the first of the above cases it was held that these tribes were neither states nor nations, had only some of the attributes of sovereignty, and could not be so far recognized in that capacity as to sustain a suit in the supreme court of the United States. In the second case it was said that they were not subject to the jurisdiction asserted over them by the state of Georgia, which, because they were within its limits, where they had been for ages, had attempted to extend her laws and the jurisdiction of her courts over them. In the opinions in these cases they are spoken of as 'wards of the nation;' 'pupils;' as local dependent communities. In this spirit the United States has conducted its relations to them from its organization to this time. But, after an experience of a hundred years of the treaty-making system of government, congress has determined upon a new departure,-to govern them by acts of congress. This is seen in the act of March 3, 1871, embodied in section 2079 of the Revised Statutes: 'No Indian nation or tribe, within the territory of the United States, shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power, with whom the United States may contract by treaty; but no obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe prior to March 3, 1871, shall be hereby invalidated or impaired.'

…The statute itself contains no express limitation upon the powers of a state, or the jurisdiction of its courts. If there be any limitation in either of these, it grows out of the implication arising from the fact that congress has defined a crime committed within the state, and made it punishable in the courts of the United States. But congress has done this, and can do it, with regard to all offenses relating to matters to which the federal authority extends. Does that authority extend to this case?

It will be seen at once that the nature of the offense (murder) is one which in most all cases of its commission is punishable by the laws of the states, and within the jurisdiction of their courts. The distinction is claimed to be that the offense under the statute is committed by an Indian, that it is committed on a reservation set apart within the state for residence of the tribe of Indians by the United States, and the fair inference is that the offending Indian shall belong to that or some other tribe. It does not interfere with the process of the state courts within the reservation, nor with the operation of state laws upon white people found there. Its effect is confined to the acts of an Indian of some tribe, of a criminal character, committed within the limits of the reservation. It seems to us that this is within the competency of congress. These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities dependent on the United States,-dependent largely for their daily food; dependent for their political rights. They owe no allegiance to the states, and receive from them no protection. Because of the local ill feeling, the people of the states where they are found are often their deadliest enemies. From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the federal government with them, and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized by the executive, and by congress, and by this court, whenever the question has arisen.

In the case of Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, it was held that, though the Indians had by treaty sold their land within that state, and agreed to remove away, which they had failed to do, the state could not, while they remained on those lands, extend its laws, criminal and civil, over the tribes; that the duty and power to compel their removal was in the United States, and the tribe was under their protection, and could not be subjected to the laws of the state, and the process of its courts.

The same thing was decided in the case of Fellows v. Blacksmith, 19 How. 366. In this case, also, the Indians had sold their lands under supervision of the states of Massachusetts and of New York, and had agreed to remove within a given time. When the time came a suit to recover some of the land was brought in the supreme court of New York, which gave judgment for the plaintiff. But this court held, on writ of error, that the state could not enforce this removal, but the duty and the power to do so was in the United States. See, also, the cases of Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737; New York Indians, Id. 761.

The power of the general government over these remnants of a race once powerful, now weak and diminished in numbers, is secessary to their protection, as well as to the safety of those among whom they dwell. It must exist in that government, because it never has existed anywhere else; because the theater of its exercise is within the geographical limits of the United States; because it has never been denied; and because it alone can enforce its laws on all the tribes.

We answer the questions propounded to us: that the ninth section of the act of March 23, 1855, is a valid law in both its branches, and that the circuit court of the United States for the district of California has jurisdiction of the offense charged in the indictment in this case.