Montana v. United States

450 U.S. 544, 101 S. Ct. 1245, 67 L. Ed. 2d 493, 1981 U.S. LEXIS 9

Opinions

Justice Stewart

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the sources and scope of the power of an Indian tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on lands within its reservation owned in fee simple by non-Indians. Relying on its purported ownership of the bed of the Big Horn River, on the treaties which created its reservation, and on its inherent power as a sovereign, the Crow Tribe of Montana claims the authority to prohibit all hunting and fishing by nonmembers of the Tribe on non-Indian property within reservation boundaries. We granted certiorari, 445 U. S. 960, to review a decision of the United States Court of Appeals- for the Ninth Circuit that substantially upheld this claim.

The Crow Indians originated in Canada, but some three centuries ago they migrated to what is now southern Montana. In_the 19th century, warfare between the Crows and several other tribes led the tribes and the United States to sign the First Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851, in which the signatory tribes acknowledged various designated lands as their respective territories. See 11 Stat. 749 and 2 C. Kap-pler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties 594 (1904) (hereinafter Kappler). The treaty identified approximately 38.5 million acres as Crow territory and, in Article 5, specified that, by making the treaty, the tribes did not “surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over” any of the lands in dispute. In 1868, the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie established a Crow Reservation of roughly 8 million acres, including land through which the Big Horn River flows. 15 Stat. 649. By Article II of the treaty, the United States agreed that the reservation “shall be . . . set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Crow Tribe, and that no non-Indians except agents of the Government “shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in” the reservation.

Several subsequent Acts of Congress reduced the reservation to slightly fewer than 2.3 million acres. See 22 Stat. 42 (1882); § 31, 26 Stat. 1039-1040 (1891); ch. 1624, 33 Stat. 352 (1904); ch. 890, 50 Stat. 884 (1937). In addition, the General Allotment Act of 1887, ch. 119, 24 Stat. 388, and the Crow Allotment Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 751, authorized the issuance of patents in fee to individual Indian allottees within the reservation. Under these Acts, an allottee could alienate his land to a non-Indian after holding it for 25 years. Today, roughly 52 percent of the reservation is allotted to members of the Tribe and held by the United States in trust for them, 17 percent is held in trust for the Tribe itself, and approximately 28 percent is held in fee by non-Indians. The State of Montana owns in fee simple 2 percent of the reservation, the United States less than 1 percent.

Since the 1920’s, the State of Montana has stocked the waters of the reservation with fish, and the construction of a dam by the United States made trout fishing in the Big Horn River possible. The reservation also contains game, some of it stocked by the State. Since the 1950’s, the Crow Tribal Council has passed several resolutions respecting hunting and fishing on the reservation, including Resolution No. 74-05, the occasion for this lawsuit. That resolution prohibits hunting and fishing within the reservation by anyone who is not a member of the Tribe. The State of Montana, however, has continued to assert its authority to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians within the reservation.

On October 9, 1975, proceeding in its own right and as fiduciary for the Tribe, the United States endeavored to resolve the conflict between the Tribe and the State by filing the present lawsuit. The plaintiff sought (1) a declaratory judgment quieting title to the bed of the Big Horn River in the United States as trustee for the Tribe, (2) a declaratory judgment establishing that the Tribe and the United States have sole authority to regulate hunting and fishing within the reservation, and (3) an injunction requiring Montana to secure the permission of the Tribe before issuing hunting or fishing licenses for use within the reservation.

The District Court denied the relief sought. 457 F. Supp. . 599. In determining the ownership of the river, the court invoked the presumption that the United States does not intend to divest itself of its sovereign rights in navigable waters and reasoned that here, as in United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S. 49, the language and circumstances of the relevant treaties were insufficient to rebut the presumption. The court thus concluded that the bed and banks of the river had remained in the ownership of the United States until they passed to Montana on its admission to the Union. As to the dispute over the regulation of hunting and fishing, the court found that “[iImplicit in the Supreme Court’s decision in Oliphant [v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U. S. 191,] is the recognition that Indian tribes do not have the power, nor do they have the authority, to regulate non-Indians unless so granted by an act of Congress.” 457 F. Supp., at 609. Because no treaty or Act of Congress gave the Tribe authority to regulate hunting or fishing by non-Indians, the court held that the Tribe could not exercise such authority except by granting or withholding authority to trespass on tribal or Indian land. All other authority to regulate non-Indian hunting and fishing resided concurrently in the State of Montana and, under 18 U. S. C. § 1165 (which makes it a federal offense to trespass on Indian land to hunt or fish without permission), the United States.

The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the District Court. 604 F. 2d 1162. Relying on its opinion in United States v. Finch, 548 F. 2d 822, vacated on other grounds, 433 U. S. 676, the appellate court held that, pursuant to the treaty of 1868, the bed and banks of the river were held by the United States in trust for the Tribe. Relying on the treaties of 1851 and 1868, the court held that the Tribe could regulate hunting and fishing within the reservation by nonmembers, although the court noted that the Tribe could not impose criminal sanctions on those nonmembers. The court also held, however, that the two Allotment Acts implicitly deprived the Tribe of the authority to prohibit hunting and fishing on fee lands by resident nonmember owners of those lands. Finally, the court held that nonmembers permitted by the Tribe to hunt or fish within the reservation remained subject to Montana's fish and game laws.

II

The respondents seek to establish a substantial part of their claim of power to control hunting and fishing on the reservation by asking us to recognize their title to the bed of the Big Horn River.¹ The question is whether the United States conveyed beneficial ownership of the riverbed to the Crow Tribe by the treaties of 1851 or 1868, and therefore continues to hold the land in trust for the use and benefit of the Tribe, or whether the United States retained ownership of the riverbed as public land which then passed to the State of Montana upon its admission to the Union. Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, 627-628.

Though the owners of land riparian to nonnavigable streams may own the adjacent riverbed, conveyance by the United States of land riparian to a navigable river carries no interest in the riverbed. Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 672; Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272, 289; 33 U. S. C. § 10; 43 U. S. C. § 931. Rather, the ownership of land under navigable waters is an incident of sovereignty. Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 409-411. As a general principle, the Federal Government holds such lands in trust for future States, to be granted to such States when they enter the Union and assume sovereignty on an “equal footing” with the established States. Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 222-223, 229. After a State enters the Union, title to the land is governed by state law. The State’s power over the beds of navigable waters remains subject to only one limitation: the paramount power of the United States to ensure that such waters remain free to interstate and foreign commerce. United States v. Oregon, 295 U. S. 1, 14. It is now established, however, that Congress may sometimes convey lands below the high-water mark of a navigable water,

“[and so defeat the title of a new State,] in order to perform international obligations, or to effect the improvement of such lands for the promotion and convenience of commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, or to carry out other public purposes appropriate to the objects for which the United States hold the Territory.” Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 48.

But because control over the property underlying navigable waters is so strongly identified with the sovereign power of government, United States v. Oregon, supra, at 14, it will not be held that the United States has conveyed such land except because of “some international duty or public exigency.” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 55. See also Shively v. Bowlby, supra, at 48. A court deciding a question of title to the bed of a navigable water must, therefore, begin with a strong presumption against conveyance by the United States, United States v. Oregon, supra, at 14, and must not infer such a conveyance “unless the intention was definitely declared or otherwise made plain,” United States v. Holt State Bank, supra, at 55, or was rendered “in clear and especial words,” Martin v. Waddell, supra, at 411, or “unless the claim confirmed in terms embraces the land under the waters of the stream,” Packer v. Bird, supra, at 672.²

In United States v. Holt State Bank, supra, this Court applied these principles to reject an Indian Tribe’s claim of title to the bed of a navigable lake. The lake lay wholly within the boundaries of the Red Lake Indian Reservation, which had been created by treaties entered into before Minnesota joined the Union. In these treaties the United States promised to “set apart and withhold from sale, for the use of” the Chippewas, a large tract of land, Treaty of Sept. 30, 1854, 10 Stat. 1109, and to convey “a sufficient quantity of land for the permanent homes” of the Indians, Treaty of Feb. 22, 1855, 10 Stat. 1165. See Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 389.³ The Court concluded that there was nothing in the treaties “which even approaches a grant of rights in lands underlying navigable waters; nor anything evincing a purpose to depart from the established policy ... of treating such lands as held for the benefit of the future State.” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 58-59. Rather, “[t]he effect of what was done was to reserve in a general way for the continued occupation of the Indians what remained of their aboriginal territory.” Id., at 58.

The Crow treaties in this case, like the Chippewa treaties in Holt State Bank, fail to overcome the established presumption that the beds of navigable waters remain in trust for future States and pass to the new States when they assume sovereignty. The 1851 treaty did not by its terms formally convey any land to the Indians at all, but instead chiefly represented a covenant among several tribes which recognized specific boundaries for their respective territories. Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, Art. 5, 2 Kappler 594-595. It referred to hunting and fishing only insofar as it said that the Crow Indians “do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described,” a statement that had no bearing on ownership of the riverbed. By contrast, the 1868 treaty did expressly convey land to the Crow Tribe. Article II of the treaty described the reservation land in detail⁴ and stated that such land would be “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named . . . .” Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, May 7, 1868, Art. II, 15 Stat. 650. The treaty then stated:

“[T]he United States now solemnly agrees that no persons, except those herein designated and authorized to do so, and except such officers, agents, and employes of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians . . . Ibid.

Whatever property rights the language of the 1868 treaty created, however, its language is not strong enough to overcome the presumption against the sovereign’s conveyance of the riverbed. The treaty in no way expressly referred to the riverbed, Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S., at 672, nor was an intention to convey the riverbed expressed in “clear and especial words,” Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet., at 411, or “definitely declared or otherwise made very plain,” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 55. Rather, as in Holt, “[t]he effect of what was done was to reserve in a general way for the continued occupation of the Indians what remained of their aboriginal territory.” Id., at 58.

Though Article 2 gave the Crow Indians the sole right to use and occupy the reserved land, and, implicitly, the power to exclude others from it, the respondents’ reliance on that provision simply begs the question of the precise extent of the conveyed lands to which this exclusivity attaches. The mere fact that the bed of a navigable water lies within the boundaries described in the treaty does not make the riverbed part of the conveyed land, especially when there is no express reference to the riverbed that might overcome the presumption against its conveyance. In the Court of Appeals’ Finch decision, on which recognition of the Crow Tribe’s title to the riverbed rested in this case, that court construed the language of exclusivity in the 1868 treaty as granting to the Indians all the lands, including the riverbed, within the described boundaries. United States v. Finch, 548 F. 2d, at 829. Such a construction, however, cannot survive examination. As the Court of Appeals recognized, ibid., and as the respondents concede, the United States retains a navigational easement in the navigable waters lying within the described boundaries for the benefit of the public, regardless of who owns the riverbed. Therefore, such phrases in the 1868 treaty as “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” and “no persons, except those herein designated . . . shall ever be permitted,” whatever they seem to mean literally, do not give the Indians the exclusive right to occupy all the territory within the described boundaries. Thus, even if exclusivity were the same as ownership, the treaty language establishing this “right of exclusivity” could not have the meaning that the Court of Appeals ascribed to it.⁵

Moreover, even though the establishment of an Indian reservation can be an “appropriate public purpose” within the meaning of Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S., at 48, justifying a congressional conveyance of a riverbed, see, e. g., Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 85, the situation of the Crow Indians at the time of the treaties presented no “public exigency” which would have required Congress to depart from its policy of reserving ownership of beds under navigable waters for the future States. See Shively v. Bowlby, supra, at 48. As the record in this case shows, at the time of the treaty the Crows were a nomadic tribe dependent chiefly on buffalo, and fishing was not important to their diet or way of life. 1 App. 74. Cf., Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, supra, at 88; Skokomish Indian Tribe v. France, 320 F. 2d 205, 212 (CA9).

For these reasons, we conclude that title to the bed of the Big Horn River passed to the State of Montana upon its admission into the Union, and that the Court of Appeals was in error in holding otherwise.

Ill

Though the parties in this case have raised broad questions about the power of the Tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on the reservation, the regulatory issue before us is a narrow one. The Court of Appeals held that the Tribe may prohibit nonmembers from hunting or fishing on land belonging to the Tribe or held by the United States in trust for the Tribe, 604 F. 2d, at 1165-1166, and with this holding we can readily agree. We also agree with the Court of Appeals that if the Tribe permits nonmembers to fish or hunt on such lands, it may condition their entry by charging a fee or establishing bag and creel limits. Ibid. What remains is the question of the power of the Tribe to regulate non-Indian fishing and hunting on reservation land owned in fee by nonmembers of the Tribe. The Court of Appeals held that, with respect to fee-patented lands, the Tribe may regulate, but may not prohibit, hunting and fishing by nonmember resident owners or by those, such as tenants or employees, whose occupancy is authorized by the owners. Id., at 1169. The court further held that the Tribe may totally prohibit hunting and fishing on lands within the reservation owned by non-Indians who do not occupy that land. Ibid.

The Court of Appeals found two sources for this tribal regulatory power: the Crow treaties, “augmented” by 18 U. S. C. § 1165, and “inherent” Indian sovereignty. We believe that neither source supports the court’s conclusion.

A

The purposes of the 1851 treaty were to assure safe passage for settlers across the lands of various Indian Tribes; to compensate the Tribes for the loss of buffalo, other game animals, timber, and forage; to delineate tribal boundaries; to promote intertribal peace; and to establish a way of identifying Indians who committed depredations against non-Indians. As noted earlier, the treaty did not even create a reservation, although it did designate tribal lands. See Crow Tribe v. United States. 151 Ct. Cl. 281, 285-286, 289, 292-293, 284 F. 2d 361, 364, 366, 368. Only Article 5 of that treaty referred to hunting and fishing, and it merely provided that the eight signatory tribes “do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described.” 2 Kappler 595.⁶ The treaty nowhere suggested that Congress intended to grant authority to the Crow Tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by nonmembers on nonmember lands. Indeed, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that after the treaty was signed non-Indians, as well as members of other Indian tribes, undoubtedly hunted and fished within the treaty-designated territory of the Crows. 604 F. 2d, at 1167.

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, 15 Stat. 649, reduced the size of the Crow territory designated by the 1851 treaty. Article II of the treaty established a reservation for the Crow Tribe, and provided that it be “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them . . . ,” (emphasis added) and that “the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons, except those herein designated and authorized so to do . . . shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians . . . .” The treaty, therefore, obligated the United States to prohibit most non-Indians from residing on or passing through reservation lands used and occupied by the Tribe, and, thereby, arguably conferred upon the Tribe the authority to control fishing and hunting on those lands.⁷ But that authority could only extend to land on which the Tribe exercises “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation.” And it is clear that the quantity of such land was substantially reduced by the allotment and alienation of tribal lands as a result of the passage of the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 331 et seq., and the Crow Allotment Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 751.⁸ If the 1868 treaty created tribal power to restrict or prohibit non-Indian hunting and fishing on the reservation, that power cannot apply to lands held in fee by non-Indians.⁹

In Puyallup Tribe v. Washington Game Dept., 433 U. S. 165 (Puyallup III), the relevant treaty included language virtually identical to that in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Puyallup Reservation was to be “set apart, and, so far as necessary, surveyed and marked out for their exclusive use . . . [and no] white man [was to] be permitted to reside upon the same without permission of the tribe . . . See id., at 174. The Puyallup Tribe argued that those words amounted to a grant of authority to fish free of state interference. But this Court rejected that argument, finding, in part, that it “clashe[d] with the subsequent history of the reservation . . . ,” ibid., notably two Acts of Congress under which the Puyallups alienated, in fee simple, the great majority of the lands in the reservation, including all the land abutting the Puyallup River. Thus, “[n] either the Tribe nor its members continue to hold Puyallup River fishing grounds for their 'exclusive use.’ ” Ibid. Puyallup III indicates, therefore, that treaty rights with respect to reservation lands must be read in light of the subsequent alienation of those lands. Accordingly, the language of the 1868 treaty provides no support for tribal authority to regulate hunting and fishing on land owned by non-Indians.

The Court of Appeals also held that the federal trespass statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1165, somehow "augmented” the Tribe’s regulatory powers over non-Indian land. 604 F. 2d, at 1167. If anything, however, that statute suggests the absence of such authority, since Congress deliberately excluded fee-patented lands from the statute’s scope. The statute provides:

“Whoever, without lawful authority or permission, willfully and knowingly goes upon any land that belongs to any Indian or Indian tribe, band, or group and either are held by the United States in trust or are subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States, or upon any lands of the United States that are reserved for Indian use, for the purpose of hunting, trapping, or fishing thereon, or for the removal of game, peltries, or fish therefrom, shall be fined . . . .”

The statute is thus limited to lands owned by Indians, held in trust by the United States for Indians, or reserved for use by Indians.¹⁰ If Congress had wished to extend tribal jurisdiction to lands owned by non-Indians, it could easily have done so by incorporating in § 1165 the definition of “Indian country” in 18 U. S. C. § 1151: “all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and including rights-of-way running through the reservation.” Indeed, a Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary proposed that this be done. But the Department of the Interior recommended against doing so in a letter dated May 23, 1958. The Department pointed out that a previous congressional Report, H. R. Rep. No. 2593, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958),¹¹ had made clear that the bill contained no implication that it would apply to land other than that held or controlled by Indians or the United States.¹² The Committee on the Judiciary then adopted the present language, which does not reach fee-patented lands within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.

B

Beyond relying on the Crow treaties and 18 U. S. C. § 1165 as source for the Tribe’s power to regulate non-Indian hunting and fishing on non-Indian lands within the reservation, the Court of Appeals also identified that power as an incident of the inherent sovereignty of the Tribe over the entire Crow Reservation. 604 F. 2d, at 1170. But “inherent sovereignty” is not so broad as to support the application of Resolution No. 74-05 to non-Indian lands.

This Court most recently reviewed the principles of inherent sovereignty in United States v. Wheeler, 435 U. S. 313. In that case, noting that Indian tribes are “unique aggregations possessing attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory,” id., at 323, the Court upheld the power of a tribe to punish tribal members who violate tribal criminal laws. But the Court was careful to note that, through their original incorporation into the United States as well as through specific treaties and statutes, the Indian tribes have lost many of the attributes of sovereignty. Id., . The Court distinguished between those inherent powers retained by the tribes and those divested:

“The areas in which such implicit divestiture of sovereignty has been held to have occurred are those involving the relations between an Indian tribe and nonmembers of the tribe. . . .

These limitations rest on the fact that the dependent status of Indian tribes within our territorial jurisdiction is necessarily inconsistent with their freedom independently to determine their external relations. But the powers of self-government, including the power to prescribe and enforce internal criminal laws, are of a different type. They involve only the relations among members of a tribe. Thus, they are not such powers as would necessarily be lost by virtue of a tribe’s dependent status.” Ibid. (Emphasis added.)

Thus, in addition to the power to punish tribal offenders, the Indian tribes retain their inherent power to determine tribal membership, to regulate domestic relations among members, and to prescribe rules of inheritance for members. Id., at 322, n. 18. But exercise of tribal power beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations is inconsistent with the dependent status of the tribes, and so cannot survive without express congressional delegation. Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148; Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 219-220; United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, 381-382; see McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 171. Since regulation of hunting and fishing by nonmembers of a tribe on lands no longer owned by the tribe bears no clear relationship to tribal self-government or internal relations,¹³ the general principles of retained inherent sovereignty did not authorize the Crow Tribe to adopt Resolution No. 74-05.

The Court recently applied these general principles in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U. S. 191, rejecting a tribal claim of inherent sovereign authority to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. Stressing that Indian tribes cannot exercise power inconsistent with their diminished status as sovereigns, the Court quoted Justice Johnson’s words in his concurrence in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 147 — the first Indian case to reach this Court — that the Indian tribes have lost any “right of governing every person within their limits except themselves.” 435 U. S., at 209. Though Oliphant only determined inherent tribal authority in criminal matters,¹⁴ the principles on which it relied support the general proposition that the inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe do not extend to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe. To be sure, Indian tribes retain inherent sovereign power to exercise some forms of civil jurisdiction over non-Indians on their reservations, even on non-Indian fee lands. A tribe may regulate, through taxation, licensing, or other means, the activities of nonmembers who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members, through commercial dealing, contracts, leases, or other arrangements. Williams v. Lee, supra, at 223; Morris v. Hitchcock, 194 U. S. ; Buster v. Wright, 135 F. 947, 950 (CA8); see Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 152-154. A tribe may also retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe. See Fisher v. District Court, 424 U. S. 382, 386; Williams v. Lee, supra, at 220; Montana Catholic Missions v. Missoula County, 200 U. S. 118, 128-129; Thomas v. Gay, 169 U. S. 264, 273.¹⁵

No such circumstances, however, are involved in this case. Non-Indian hunters and fishermen on non-Indian fee land do not enter any agreements or dealings with the Crow Tribe so as to subject themselves to tribal civil jurisdiction. And nothing in this case suggests that such non-Indian hunting and fishing so threaten the Tribe's political or economic security as to justify tribal regulation. The complaint in the District Court did not allege that non-Indian hunting and fishing on fee lands imperil the subsistence or welfare of the Tribe.¹⁶ Furthermore, the District Court made express findings, left unaltered by the Court of Appeals, that the Crow Tribe has traditionally accommodated itself to the State's “near exclusive” regulation of hunting and fishing on fee lands within the reservation. 457 F. Supp., at 609-610. And the District Court found that Montana's statutory and regulatory scheme does not prevent the Crow Tribe from limiting or forbidding non-Indian hunting and fishing on lands still owned by or held in trust for the Tribe or its members. Id., at 609.

IV

For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

1 According to the respondents, the Crow Tribe’s interest in restricting hunting and fishing on the reservation focuses almost entirely on sports fishing and duck hunting in the waters and on the surface of the Big Horn River. The parties, the District Court, and the Court of Appeals have all assumed that ownership of the riverbed will largely determine the power to control these activities. Moreover, although the complaint in this case sought to quiet title only to the bed of the Big Horn River, we note the concession of the United States that if the bed of the river passed to Montana upon its admission to the Union, the State at the same time acquired ownership of the banks of the river as well.

2 Congress was, of course, aware of this presumption once it was established by this Court. See Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584, 588.

3 The Hitchcock decision expressly stated that the Red Lake Reservation was “a reservation within the accepted meaning of the term.” 185 U. S., at 389.

4 “[C]ommeneing where the 107th degree of longitude west of Greenwich crosses the south boundary of Montana Territory; thence north along said 107th meridian to the mid-channel of the Yellowstone River; thence up said mid-channel of the Yellowstone to the point where it crosses the said southern boundary of Montana, being the 45th degree of north latitude; and thence east along said parallel of latitude to the place of beginning . . . .” Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, May 7, 1868, Art. II, 15 Stat. 650.

5 In one recent case, Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, this Court did construe a reservation grant as including the bed of a navigable water, and the respondents argue that this case resembles Choctaw Nation more than it resembles the established line of cases to which Choctaw Nation is a singular exception. But the finding of a conveyance of the riverbed in Choctaw Nation was based on very peculiar circumstances not present in this case.

Those circumstances arose from the unusual history of the treaties there at issue, a history which formed an important basis of the decision. Id., at 622-628. Immediately after the Revolutionary War, the United States had signed treaties of peace and protection with the Cherokee and Choctaw Tribes, reserving them lands in Georgia and Mississippi. In succeeding years, the United States bought large areas of land from the Indians to make room for white settlers who were encroaching on tribal lands, but the Government signed new treaties guaranteeing that the Indians could live in peace on those lands not ceded. The United States soon betrayed that promise. It proposed that the Tribes be relocated in a newly acquired part of the Arkansas Territory, but the new territory was soon overrun by white settlers, and through a series of new cession agreements the Indians were forced to relocate farther and farther west. Ultimately, most of the Tribes’ members refused to leave their eastern lands, doubting the reliability of the Government’s promises of the new western land, but Georgia and Mississippi, anxious for the relocation westward so they could assert jurisdiction over the Indian lands, purported to abolish the Tribes and distribute the tribal lands. The Choctaws and Cherokees finally signed new treaties with the United States aimed at rectifying their past suffering at the hands of the Federal Government and the States.

Under the Choctaw treaty, the United States promised to convey new lands west of the Arkansas Territory in fee simple, and also pledged that “no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the Choctaw Nation . . . and that no part of the land granted to them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State.” Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, Sept. 27, 1830, 7 Stat. 333-334, quoted in Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S., at 625. In 1835, the Cherokees signed a treaty containing similar provisions granting reservation lands in fee simple and promising that the tribal lands would not become part of any State or Territory. Id., at 626. In concluding that the United States had intended to convey the riverbed to the Tribes before the admission of Oklahoma to the Union, the Choctaw Court relied on these circumstances surrounding the treaties and placed special emphasis on the Government’s promise that the reserved lands would never become part of any State. Id., at 634-635. Neither the special historical origins of the Choctaw and Cherokee treaties nor the crucial provisions granting Indian lands in fee simple and promising freedom from state jurisdiction in those treaties have any counterparts in the terms and circumstances of the Crow treaties of 1851 and 1868.

6 The complaint in this case did not allege that non-Indian hunting and fishing on reservation lands has impaired this privilege.

7 Article IV of the treaty addressed hunting rights specifically. But that Article referred only to “unoccupied lands of the United States,” viz., lands outside the reservation boundaries, and is accordingly not relevant here.

8 The 1920 Crow Allotment Act was one of the special Allotment Acts Congress passed from time to time pursuant to the policy underlying the General Allotment Act. See S. Rep. No. 219, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1919). The Senate Committee Report on the Crow Allotment bill stated that it “is in accordance with the policy to which Congress gave its adherence many years ago, and which found expression in the [General Allotment Act].” Ibid.

9 The Court of Appeals discussed the effect of the Allotment Acts as follows:

“While neither of these Acts, nor any other to which our attention has been called, explicitly qualifies the Tribe’s rights over hunting and fishing, it defies reason to suppose that Congress intended that non-members who reside on fee patent lands could hunt and fish thereon only by consent of the Tribe. So far as the record of this case reveals, no efforts to exclude completely non-members of the Crow Tribe from hunting and fishing within the reservation were being made by the Crow Tribe at the time of enactment of the Allotment Acts.” 604 F. 2d 1162, 1168 (footnote omitted).

But nothing in the Allotment Acts supports the view of the Court of Appeals that the Tribe could nevertheless bar hunting and fishing by nonresident fee owners. The policy of the Acts was the eventual assimilation of the Indian population, Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U. S. 60, 72, and the “gradual extinction of Indian reservations and Indian titles.” Draper v. United States, 164 U. S. 240, 246. The Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs repeatedly emphasized that the allotment policy was designed to eventually eliminate tribal relations. See, e. g., Secretary of the Interior Ann. Rep., vol. 1, pp. 25-28 (1885); Secretary of the Interior Ann. Rep., vol. 1, p. 4 (1886); Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ann. Rep., vol. 1, pp. IV-X (1887); Secretary of the Interior Ann. Rep., vol. 1, pp. XXIX-XXXII (1888); Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ann. Rep. 3-4 (1889); Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ann. Rep. VI, XXXIX (1890); Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ann. Rep., vol. 1, pp. 3-9, 26 (1891); Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ann. Rep. 5 (1892) ; Secretary of the Interior Ann. Rep., vol. 1, p. IV (1894). And throughout the congressional debates on the subject of allotment, it was assumed that the “civilization” of the Indian population was to be accomplished, in part, by the dissolution of tribal relations. See, e. g., 11 Cong. Rec. 779 (Sen. Vest), 782 (Sen. Coke), 783-784 (Sen. Saunders), 875 (Sens. Morgan and Hoar), 881 (Sen. Brown), 905 (Sen. Butler), 939 (Sen. Teller), 1003 (Sen. Morgan), 1028 (Sen. Hoar), 1064, 1065 (Sen. Plumb), 1067 (Sen. Williams) (1881).

There is simply no suggestion in the legislative history that Congress intended that the non-Indians who would settle upon alienated allotted lands would be subject to tribal regulatory authority. Indeed, throughout the congressional debates, allotment of Indian land was consistently equated with the dissolution of tribal affairs and jurisdiction. See, e. g., id., at 785 (Sen. Morgan), 875 (Sen. Hoar), 876 (Sen. Morgan), 878 (Sens. Hoar and Coke), 881 (Sen. Brown), 908 (Sen. Call), 939 (Sen. Teller), 1028 (Sen. Hoar), 1067 (Sens. Edmunds and Williams). It defies common sense to suppose that Congress would intend that non-Indians purchasing allotted lands would become subject to tribal jurisdiction when an avowed purpose of the allotment policy was the ultimate destruction of tribal government. And it is hardly likely that Congress could have imagined that the purpose of peaceful assimilation could be advanced if feeholders could be excluded from fishing or hunting on their acquired property.

The policy of allotment and sale of surplus reservation land was, of course, repudiated in 1934 by the Indian Reorganization Act, 48 Stat. 984, 25 U. S. C. § 461 et seq. But what is relevant in this case is the effect of the land alienation occasioned by that policy on Indian treaty rights tied to Indian use and occupation of reservation land.

10 See United States v. Bouchard, 464 F. Supp. 1316, 1336 (WD Wis.); United States v. Pollmann, 364 F. Supp. 995 (Mont.).

11 House Report No. 2593 stated that the purpose of the bill that became 18 U. S. C. § 1165 was to make it unlawful to enter Indian land to hunt, trap, or fish without the consent of the individual Indian or tribe:

“Indian propertj'' owners should have the same protection as other property owners, for example, a private hunting club may keep nonmembers off its game lands or it may issue a permit for a fee. One who comes on such lands without permission may be prosecuted under State law but a non-Indian trespasser on an Indian reservation enjoys immunity.

“Non-Indians are not subject to the jurisdiction of Indian courts and cannot be tried in Indian courts on trespass charges. Further, there are no Federal laws which can be invoked against trespassers.” H. R. Rep. No. 2593, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., at 2.

12 Subsequent Reports in the House and Senate, H. R. Rep. No. 625, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959); S. Rep. No. 1686, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. (1960), also refer to “Indian lands” and “Indian property owners” rather than “Indian country.” In Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U. S. 191, this Court referred to S. Rep. No. 1686, which stated that “the legislation [18 U. S. C. § 1165] will give to the Indian tribes and to individual Indian owners certain rights that now exist as to others, and fills a gap in the present law for the protection of their property.” 435 U. S., at 206. (Emphasis added.)

Before the Court of Appeals decision, several other courts interpreted § 1165 to be confined to lands owned by Indians, or held in trust for their benefit. State v. Baker, 464 F. Supp. 1377 (WD Wis.); United States v. Bouchard, 464 F. Supp. 1316 (WD Wis.); United States v. Pollmann, supra; Donahue v. California Justice Court, 15 Cal. App. 3d 557, 93 Cal. Rptr. 310. Cf. United States v. Sanford, 547 F. 2d 1085, 1089 (CA9) (holding that § 1165 was designed to prevent encroachments on Indian lands, rejecting the argument that § 1165 makes illegal the unauthorized killing of wildlife on an Indian reservation, and noting that “the application of Montana game laws to the activities of non-Indians on Indian reservations does not interfere with tribal self-government on reservations”).

13 Any argument that Resolution No. 74r-05 is necessary to Crow tribal self-government is refuted by the findings of the District Court that the State of Montana has traditionally exercised “near exclusive” jurisdiction over hunting and fishing on fee lands within the reservation, and that the parties to this case had accommodated themselves to the state regulation. 457 F. Supp. 599, 610. The Court of Appeals left these findings unaltered and indeed implictly reaffirmed them, adding that the record reveals no attempts by the Tribe at the time of the Crow Allotment Act to forbid non-Indian hunting and fishing on reservation lands. 604 F. 2d, at 1168, and n. HA.

14 By denying the Suquamish Tribe criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, however, the Oliphant case would seriously restrict the ability of a tribe to enforce any purported regulation of non-Indian hunters and fishermen. Moreover, a tribe would not be able to rely for enforcement on the federal criminal trespass statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1165, since that statute does not apply to fee patented lands. See supra, at 561-563, and nn. 10-12.

15 As a corollary, this Court has held that Indian tribes retain rights to river waters necessary to make their reservations livable. Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 599.

16 Similarly, the complaint did not allege that the State has abdicated or abused its responsibility for protecting and managing wildlife, has established its season, bag, or creel limits in such a way as to impair the Crow Indians’ treaty rights to fish or hunt, or has imposed less stringent hunting and fishing regulations within the reservation than in other parts of the State. Cf. United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, 410-411 (WD Wash.), aff’d, 520 F. 2d 676 (CA9).