196
Opinion of the Court
. . . secured to them by the treaty of June 16, 1820").6 See, e. g., Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, 631 (1970) (rejecting argument that language in Treaty had special meaning when United States was competent to state that meaning more clearly).
The State argues that despite any explicit reference to the 1837 Treaty rights, or to usufructuary rights more generally, the second sentence of Article 1 nevertheless abrogates those rights. But to determine whether this language abrogates Chippewa Treaty rights, we look beyond the written words to the larger context that frames the Treaty, including "the history of the treaty, the negotiations, and the practical construction adopted by the parties." Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U. S. 423, 432 (1943); see also El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U. S. 155, 167 (1999). In this case, an examination of the historical record provides insight into how the parties to the Treaty understood the terms of the agreement. This insight is especially helpful to the extent that it sheds light on how the Chippewa signatories to the Treaty understood the agreement because we interpret Indian treaties to give effect to the terms as the Indians themselves would have understood them. See Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 675-676 (1979); United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371, 380-381 (1905).
The 1855 Treaty was designed primarily to transfer Chippewa land to the United States, not to terminate Chippewa usufructuary rights. It was negotiated under the authority of the Act of December 19, 1854. This Act authorized treaty
6 See also, e. g., 1846 Treaty with the Winnebago, Art. IV, 9 Stat. 878 (Government agrees to pay Winnebago Indians $40,000 "for release of hunting privileges, on the lands adjacent to their present home"); 1837 Treaty with the Sacs and Foxes, Art. 2, 7 Stat. 543 (specifically ceding "all the right to locate, for hunting or other purposes, on the land ceded in the first article of the treaty of July 15th 1830").
Page: Index Previous 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007