110
Opinion of the Court
C
Finally, we find petitioner's resort to general principles of Indian law unavailing. Petitioner cites our opinion in Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976), for the proposition that "laws must be liberally construed to favor Indians." Brief for Petitioner 11. What we actually said in Bryan, was that " 'statutes passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes . . . are to be liberally construed, doubtful expressions being resolved in favor of the Indians.' " 426 U. S., at 392 (quoting Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918)). Petitioner claims that the Court of Appeals' construction of the Kansas Act harms Indians by eliminating the historically exclusive stewardship of the Federal Government over major crimes committed by Indians in Indian country, and subjecting Indians to the possibility of dual prosecution by state and federal authorities.
It is not entirely clear to us that the Kansas Act is a statute "passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes." But if it does fall into that category, it seems likely that Congress thought that the Act's conferral of criminal jurisdiction on the State would be a "benefit" to the tribes in question. We see no reason to equate "benefit of dependent Indian tribes," as that language is used in Bryan, with "benefit of accused Indian criminals," without regard to the interests of the victims of these crimes or of the tribe itself. But in any event, for the reasons previously discussed, we think that the Kansas Act quite unambiguously confers jurisdiction on the State over major offenses committed by or against Indians on Indian reservations, and we therefore have no occasion to resort to this canon of statutory construction. See South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, Inc., 476 U. S. 498, 506 (1986).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
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