Cite as: 533 U. S. 353 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
which Montana referred: tribes have authority "[to punish tribal offenders,] to determine tribal membership, to regulate domestic relations among members, and to prescribe rules of inheritance for members," 520 U. S., at 459 (brackets in original), quoting Montana, supra, at 564. These examples show, we said, that Indians have " 'the right . . . to make their own laws and be ruled by them,' " 520 U. S., at 459, quoting Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959). See also Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 386 (1976) (per curiam) ("In litigation between Indians and non-Indians arising out of conduct on an Indian reservation, resolution of conflicts between the jurisdiction of state and tribal courts has depended, absent a governing Act of Congress, on whether the state action infringed on the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them" (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). Tribal assertion of regulatory authority over nonmembers must be connected to that right of the Indians to make their own laws and be governed by them. See Merrion, supra, at 137, 142 ("The power to tax is an essential attribute of Indian sovereignty because it is a necessary instrument of self-government," at least as to "tribal lands" on which the tribe "has . . . authority over a nonmember").
Our cases make clear that the Indians' right to make their own laws and be governed by them does not exclude all state regulatory authority on the reservation. State sovereignty does not end at a reservation's border. Though tribes are often referred to as "sovereign" entities, it was "long ago" that "the Court departed from Chief Justice Marshall's view that 'the laws of [a State] can have no force' within reservation boundaries. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 561 (1832)," White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U. S. 136, 141 (1980).4 "Ordinarily," it is now clear, "an Indian
4 Our holding in Worcester must be considered in light of the fact that "[t]he 1828 treaty with the Cherokee Nation . . . guaranteed the Indians their lands would never be subjected to the jurisdiction of any State or
361
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007