Cite as: 526 U. S. 172 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
right or interest . . . is also ceded to the United States." Id., at 292. This part of the Commissioner's report suggests that the second sentence of Article 1 was designed not to extinguish usufructuary rights, but rather to extinguish remaining Chippewa land claims. The "other lands" do not appear to be the lands ceded by the 1837 Treaty. The Pillager and Lake Winnibigoshish Bands did not occupy lands in the 1837 ceded territory, so it is unlikely that the Commissioner would have described the usufructuary rights guaranteed by the 1837 Treaty as belonging "especially" to those Bands. Moreover, the 1837 Treaty privileges were held in common largely with Chippewa bands in Wisconsin, not with "other Indians in Minnesota." In other words, the second sentence of Article 1 did not extinguish usufructuary privileges, but rather it extinguished Chippewa land claims that Commissioner Manypenny could not describe precisely. See e. g., id., at 317-318 (1855 Treaty Journal) (Pillager negotiator declines to "state precisely what our bands claim as a right"). See also 861 F. Supp., at 816-817.
One final part of the historical record also suggests that the 1855 Treaty was a land purchase treaty and not a treaty that also terminated usufructuary rights: the 1854 Treaty with the Chippewa. Most of the Chippewa Bands that resided within the territory ceded by the 1837 Treaty were signatories to the 1854 Treaty; only the Mille Lacs Band was a party to the 1855 Treaty. If the United States had intended to abrogate Chippewa usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty, it almost certainly would have included a provision to that effect in the 1854 Treaty, yet that Treaty contains no such provision. To the contrary, it expressly secures new usufructuary rights to the signatory Bands on the newly ceded territory. The State proposes no explanation— compelling or otherwise—for why the United States would have wanted to abrogate the Mille Lacs Band's hunting and fishing rights, while leaving intact the other Bands' rights to hunt and fish on the same territory.
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