428
Blackmun, J., dissenting
of the Public Domain 5 (1951) (footnote omitted).8 Most commonly, the public domain and public lands "have been defined as those lands subject to sale or other disposal under the general land laws." Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U. S. 193, 206 (1987), quoting E. Baynard, Public Land Law and Procedure § 1.1, p. 2 (1986); see also Kindred v. Union Pacific R. Co., 225 U. S. 582, 596 (1912) (the term "public lands" ordinarily was "used to designate such lands as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws"); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Harris, 215 U. S. 386, 388 (1910); Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761, 763 (1876) ("The words 'public lands' are habitually used . . . to describe such as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws").
Nothing in our precedents stating that lands reserved from the public domain were "reserved from sale," Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363, 381 (1868), or "withdrawn from sale and settlement," Sioux Tribe v. United States, 316 U. S. 317, 323 (1942) (internal quotation marks omitted), however, demonstrates that restoration of those lands to the public domain was "inconsistent" with continued reservation status, ante, at 416. Under 19th-century Indian-land policies, non-Indians could not purchase, and generally could not enter, lands reserved for exclusive use by Indian tribes. Indian reservations obviously were not part of the public domain to the extent that they were reserved from non-Indian purchase. The opening of these lands under the allotment Acts, on the other hand, necessarily restored all such lands to the public domain, in the sense that the lands were made
8 Although the phrase "public domain" appears infrequently in our precedents, this Court has used it interchangeably with references to "public land[s]." See, e. g., United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459, 468 (1915). Black's Law Dictionary 1229 (6th ed. 1990) defines the public domain as "[l]and and water in possession of and owned by the United States and the states individually . . . . See also Public Lands." See Amoco Production Co. v. Gambell, 480 U. S. 531, 549, n. 15 (1987) ("reject[ing] the assertion that the phrase 'public lands,' in and of itself, has a precise meaning, without reference to a definitional section or its context in a statute").
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