Cite as: 510 U. S. 399 (1994)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
ervation boundaries would be diminished. Solem, 465 U. S., at 471. The ever-present Inspector James McLaughlin, who negotiated the Rosebud and DeCoteau agreements that this Court found to contain express language of disestablishment, used no comparable language here.10 Instead, McLaughlin spoke largely in terms of "opening" the reservation to use by non-Indians.11 The Indians similarly responded primarily in terms of "opening" and opposed the proposed sale.12
The Court isolates a single comment by McLaughlin from the six days of negotiations to argue that diminishment was understood. But McLaughlin's "picturesque" statement that " 'there will be no outside boundary line to this
10 In negotiating the 1901 Agreement, for example, McLaughlin explained to the Rosebud Sioux Indians that " '[t]he cession of Gregory County' by ratification of the Agreement 'will leave your reservation a compact, and almost square tract . . . about the size and area of Pine Ridge Reservation.' " Rosebud, 430 U. S., at 591-592.
11 See, e. g., Minutes of Councils Held by Inspector James McLaughlin, U. S. Indian Inspector, with the Uintah and White River Ute Indians, at Uintah Agency, Utah, from May 18 to May 23, 1903, excerpted in App. to Brief for Duchesne County, Utah, as Amicus Curiae 333a, 336a (hereinafter Minutes) ("After you have taken your allotments the remaining land is to be opened for settlement"), id., at 342a ("The surplus lands will be opened to settlement"), id., at 354a ("As certainly as the sun rises tomorrow [your reservation] is to be opened"), id., at 358a ("[I]t is not for you to say whether your reservation is to be opened or not"), id., at 359a ("Do not lose sight of the fact that the reservation is to be opened"), id., at 363a ("The reservation will certainly be opened").
12 See, e. g., id., at 339a ("When they put us on the reservation . . . they were not to open it"), id., at 340a ("The president made this reservation here for the Indians and it ought not to be opened up"), id., at 343a ("I don't want you to talk to us about opening our reservation. . . . We don't want this reservation opened, and we do not want White people coming in among us"), id., at 344a ("[W]e do not want this reservation thrown open"), ibid. ("[T]hey told us that this land would be ours always and that it would never be opened"), id., at 346a ("We are not going to talk about opening our reservation"), ibid. ("[W]e do not want to have the reservation thrown open"), id., at 351a ("I am on this reservation, and I do not want this land thrown open"), id., at 357a ("[T]he Indians do not want the reservation opened").
431
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