344
Opinion of the Court
Acts, the Court is presented with questions that their architects could not have foreseen"). Thus, although "[t]he most probative evidence of diminishment is, of course, the statutory language used to open the Indian lands," we have held that we will also consider "the historical context surrounding the passage of the surplus land Acts," and, to a lesser extent, the subsequent treatment of the area in question and the pattern of settlement there. Id., at 411. Throughout this inquiry, "we resolve any ambiguities in favor of the Indians, and we will not lightly find diminishment." Ibid.
A
Article I of the 1894 Act provides that the Tribe will "cede, sell, relinquish, and convey to the United States all their claim, right, title, and interest in and to all the unallotted lands within the limits of the reservation"; pursuant to Article II, the United States pledges a fixed payment of $600,000 in return. This "cession" and "sum certain" language is "precisely suited" to terminating reservation status. See DeCoteau, 420 U. S., at 445. Indeed, we have held that when a surplus land Act contains both explicit language of cession, evidencing "the present and total surrender of all tribal interests," and a provision for a fixed-sum payment, representing "an unconditional commitment from Congress to compensate the Indian tribe for its opened land," a "nearly conclusive," or "almost insurmountable," presumption of diminishment arises. Solem, supra, at 470; see also Hagen, supra, at 411.
The terms of the 1894 Act parallel the language that this Court found terminated the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation in DeCoteau, supra, at 445, and, as in DeCoteau, the 1894 Act ratified a negotiated agreement supported by a majority of the Tribe. Moreover, the Act we construe here more clearly indicates diminishment than did the surplus land Act at issue in Hagen, which we concluded diminished reservation lands even though it provided only that "all the
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