116
Opinion of the Court
G. William Rice argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Gregory H. Bigler and N. Brent Parmer.*
Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we consider whether the State of Oklahoma may impose income taxes or motor vehicle taxes on the members of the Sac and Fox Nation.
I
The Sac and Fox Nation (Tribe) is a federally recognized Indian tribe located in the State of Oklahoma. Until the mid-18th century, the Tribe lived in the Great Lakes region of the United States. M. Wright, A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma 225 (1951). In 1789, it entered into its first treaty with the United States and ceded much of its land. See Treaty at Fort Harmar, 7 Stat. 28. That was only the first of many agreements between the Government and the Tribe in which the Tribe surrendered its land and moved elsewhere. As part of its gradual, treaty-imposed migration, the Tribe stopped briefly along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in what are now the States of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska. Wright, Guide to Indian
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the State of Arizona et al. by Grant Woods, Attorney General of Arizona, and Patrick Irvine, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Hubert H. Humphrey III of Minnesota, Marc Racicot of Montana, Nicholas J. Spaeth of North Dakota, Paul Van Dam of Utah, and James E. Doyle of Wisconsin.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation et al. by Reid Peyton Chambers and Jeannette Wolfley; for the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma et al. by Melody L. McCoy, Bertram E. Hirsch, and Thomas W. Fredericks; for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma by Bob Rabon; and for the Navajo Nation et al. by Paul E. Frye, Wayne H. Bladh, and Stanley M. Pollack.
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