South Dakota v. Bourland, 508 U.S. 679, 12 (1993)

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690

SOUTH DAKOTA v. BOURLAND

Opinion of the Court

regulation. The Act also clearly prohibits any "use" of the lands "which is inconsistent with the laws for the protection of fish and game of the State in which such area is situated" or which is determined by the Secretary of the Army to be "contrary to the public interest." Ibid.

If the Flood Control Act leaves any doubt whether the Tribe retains its original treaty right to regulate non-Indian hunting and fishing on lands taken for federal water projects, the Cheyenne River Act extinguishes all such doubt. Section II of that Act declares that the sum paid by the Government to the Tribe for former trust lands taken for the Oahe Dam and Reservoir Project, "shall be in final and complete settlement of all claims, rights, and demands" of the Tribe or its allottees. 68 Stat. 1191. This provision reliably indicates that the Government and the Tribe understood the Act to embody the full terms of their agreement, including the various rights that the Tribe and its members would continue to enjoy after conveying the 104,420 acres to the Government.10 The Tribe's § IX "right of free access to the shoreline of the reservoir includ[es] the right to hunt and fish" but is "subject . . . to regulations governing the corresponding use by other citizens of the United States." Id., at 1193 (emphasis added). If Congress had intended by this provision to grant the Tribe the additional right to regulate hunting and fishing, it would have done so by a similarly explicit statutory command. The rights granted the Tribe in § IX stand in contrast to the expansive treaty right originally granted to the Tribe of "absolute and undisturbed use," which does encompass the right to exclude and to regulate. See Montana, 450 U. S., at 554, 558.

10 The dissent apparently finds ambiguity in this provision, on the ground that it "does not address the question of which rights Congress intended to take." Post, at 703. The self-evident answer is that when Congress used the term "all claims, rights, and demands" of the Tribe, 68 Stat. 1191, it meant all claims, rights, and demands.

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