Cite as: 508 U. S. 679 (1993)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
exclusive use was abrogated. See ante, at 689. This reasoning fails on two counts. First, treaties " 'must . . . be construed, not according to the technical meaning of [their] words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.' " Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 676 (1979), quoting Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 11 (1899). I find it implausible that the Tribe here would have thought every right subsumed in the Fort Laramie Treaty's sweeping language to be defeated the moment they lost the right to exclusive use of their land. Second, the majority's myopic focus on the Treaty ignores the fact that this Treaty merely confirmed the Tribe's preexisting sovereignty over the reservation land. Even on the assumption that the Tribe's treaty-based right to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians was lost with the Tribe's power to exclude non-Indians, its inherent authority to regulate such hunting and fishing continued.
The majority's reliance on Montana and Brendale in this regard is misplaced. In those cases, the reservation land at issue had been conveyed in fee to non-Indians pursuant to the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, which aimed at the eventual elimination of reservations and the assimilation of Indian peoples. See Montana, 450 U. S., at 559, n. 9. In Montana, the Court concluded: "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." Id., at 560, n. 9. See also Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U. S. 408, 423 (1989) (opinion of White, J.). The majority finds the purpose for which the land is alienated irrelevant, relying on Montana's statement that " 'what is relevant . . . is the effect of the land alienation occasioned by that policy on Indian treaty rights tied to Indian use and occupation of reservation land.'"
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