528
Opinion of the Court
Before § 1151 was enacted, we held in three cases that Indian lands that were not reservations could be Indian country and that the Federal Government could therefore exercise jurisdiction over them. See United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28 (1913); United States v. Pelican, 232 U. S. 442 (1914); United States v. McGowan, 302 U. S. 535 (1938).3 The first of these cases, United States v. Sandoval, posed the question whether the Federal Government could constitutionally proscribe the introduction of "intoxicating liquor" into the lands of the Pueblo Indians. 231 U. S., at 36. We rejected the contention that federal power could not extend to the Pueblo lands because, unlike Indians living on reservations, the Pueblos owned their lands in fee simple. Id., at 48. We indicated that the Pueblos' title was not fee simple title in the commonly understood sense of the term. Congress had recognized the Pueblos' title to their ancestral lands by statute, and Executive orders had reserved additional public lands "for the [Pueblos'] use and occupancy." Id., at 39. In addition, Congress had enacted legislation with respect to the lands "in the exercise of the Govern-ment's guardianship over th[e] [Indian] tribes and their affairs," id., at 48, including federal restrictions on the lands' alienation.4 Congress therefore could exercise jurisdiction over the Pueblo lands, under its general power over "all dependent Indian communities within its borders, whether within its original territory or territory subsequently acquired, and whether within or without the limits of a State." Id., at 46.
3 We had also held, not surprisingly, that Indian reservations were Indian country. See, e. g., Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243, 269 (1913).
4 One such law was Rev. Stat. § 2116, 25 U. S. C. § 177, which rendered invalid any conveyance of Indian land not made by treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the Constitution, and which we later held applicable to the Pueblos. See United States v. Candelaria, 271 U. S. 432, 441-442 (1926).
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