United States v. Cherokee Nation

202 U.S. 101 (1906)

UNITED STATES
v.
CHEROKEE NATION.
EASTERN CHEROKEES
v.
CHEROKEE NATION AND UNITED STATES.
CHEROKEE NATION
v.
UNITED STATES.

Nos. 346, 347, 348.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued January 16, 17, 18, 1906. Decided April 30, 1906. APPEALS FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

Mr. Louis A. Pradt, Assistant Attorney General, for the United States.

Mr. Frederic D. McKenney and Mr. Charles Nagel, with whom Mr. Edgar Smith was on the brief, for the Cherokee Nation.

Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood for the Eastern and Emigrant Cherokees.

Mr. Robert L. Owen and Mr. William H. Robeson, with whom Mr. Robert V. Belt, Mr. James K. Jones, Mr. Mathew C. Butler and Mr. John Vaile were on the brief, for the Eastern Cherokees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

Of the four items of the amounts allowed, only one, that for $1,111,284.70, need be considered here.

1. The correctness of the account is conceded, and the question is whether the United States were properly held liable therefor. The Court of Claims ruled that the account rendered by Slade and Bender under the agreement between the United States and the Cherokee Nation, ratified by Congress, was neither an award nor an account stated, but that the United States were nevertheless liable in the circumstances for the balance found.

The case is thus put by Chief Justice Nott:

"But while the account was neither an award nor an account stated, it must be conceded that the scope of the accounting was intended to be as broad as the causes of action secured by the agreement to the Cherokee Nation `the right within twelve months to enter suit against the United States in the Court of Claims for any alleged or declared amount of money promised but withheld by the United States from the Cherokee Nation, under any of said treaties or laws, which may be claimed to be omitted from or improperly or unjustly or illegally adjusted in said accounting.' That is to say, the court, or the accountants, were to go behind statutory and treaty bars and receipts in full and were to consider `any alleged or declared amount of money promised but withheld' `under any of said treaties or laws.' This meant that there were to be no technical defenses set up, no pleas of res judicata, no releases or relinquishments, compromises or settlements; or it meant nothing.. . .

"Interpreted in the light of the long, sore controversy which had existed between the parties, it is plain that the Cherokees believed the agreement to mean (and the United States allowed them so to believe) that all of their claims and rights and equities were to be reopened and reexamined de novo; and that upon the faith of that belief they made a cession of the Outlet.

"In the opinion of the court this case is simply one to recover purchase money upon a contract of sale. Ordinarily, in such a case, the cession would not be made, the deed would not be delivered until the purchase money is paid or secured or, at least, the amount be ascertained and liquidated. In this case both parties wanted to expedite the transaction. It was important for the United States that the cession of the territory should be made immediately; it was desirable for the Cherokee Nation that the purchase money should be paid soon. But, nevertheless, the Cherokee Nation had the right to immediate payment, and the agreement intended to secure to them the next thing to it — the right to an early payment. The accounting was merely a means to an end. The end was the immediate payment, as near as might be, of the whole consideration to be given for the cession of the Outlet. When the cession was made the purchase money was due; the only thing remaining, which was the object of the accounting, was to ascertain the exact amount. This is not the case of a party prosecuting an unliquidated debt, but a case of sale and delivery and non-payment of the purchase money for the thing sold and delivered. The United States were willing to pay; the Cherokee Nation wanted the payment made at the earliest possible day; both parties agreed upon a method by which it should be paid as nearly immediately as was possible. The United States were to render their account `without delay;' if the Cherokee Nation accepted it, the amount was to be appropriated by Congress; such `appropriation to be made by Congress, if then in session, and if not, then at the session immediately following such accounting.' If the Cherokee Nation did not accept the accounting, or regarded it as incorrect or unjust, and carried it into the courts and recovered a judgment, Congress was to appropriate `at the its next session after such case shall be finally decided.' Nothing was left to the ordinary uncertainties and procrastinations of legislation, and no agreement could have made the obligation to pay promptly more unequivocal and specific. Time was of the essence of the contract, so far as the words of the parties could make it.

"The court does not intend to imply that when the account of Slade and Bender came into the hands of the Secretary of the Interior he was bound to transmit it to the Cherokee Nation. On the contrary, the Cherokee Nation had not agreed to be bound by the report of the accountants and could not claim that the United States should be. The accountants were but the instrumentality of the United States in making out an account. When it was placed in the Interior Department it was as much within the discretion of the Secretary to accept and adopt it or to remand it for alterations and corrections as a thing could be. He was the representative of the United States under whom the agreement had been made, and he was the authority under which the account had been made out, and when he transmitted it to the Cherokee Nation his transmission was the transmission of the United States. When the account was thus received by the Cherokee Nation (May 21, 1894), the `twelve months' of the agreement, within which the Nation must consider it and enter suit against the other party in the Court of Claims, began to run, and with the Nation's acceptance of the account (December 1, 1894) the session of Congress at which an appropriation should be made became fixed and certain. The Secretary did not recall the account; the United States never rendered another, and the utmost authority which Congress could have exercised, if any, was, at the same session, or certainly within the prescribed `twelve months,' to have directed the Secretary to withdraw the account and notify the Cherokee Nation that another would be rendered. The action of the Secretary of the Interior, combined with the inaction of Congress to direct anything to the contrary, makes this provision of the agreement final and conclusive. The Cherokee Nation has parted with the land, has lost the time within which it might have appealed to the courts, and has lost the right to bring the items which it regards as incorrectly or unjustly disallowed to judicial arbitrament, and the United States are placed in the position of having broken and evaded the letter and spirit of their agreement."

Weldon, J., concurred with the Chief Justice in a separate opinion. Peelle, J., concurred in the judgment, but rested his conclusion on the ground that the United States were liable "to pay the expense of removal" of the Eastern Cherokees from their eastern home to the Indian Territory, under the treaties of 1835-36 and 1846, 7 Stat. 478; 9 Stat. 871, and therefore to pay this conceded balance. The various treaties from 1817 down, the legislation, accountings, and proceedings were duly considered in arriving at the result reached. Wright, J., dissented.

We agree that the United States were liable, and think the liability might well be rested on both grounds, that is, that failing one it could be sustained on the other, but we do not deem it necessary to set forth in our own language what has already been so well stated by Chief Justice Nott and Judges Weldon and Peelle.

2. Recovery of the item of $1,111,284.70 was adjudged "with interest thereon at the rate of five per cent from June 12, 1838, to date of payment," and it is contended that the Court of Claims erred in this allowance of interest.

Under the eleventh article of the treaty of 1846 the Cherokees agreed to submit to the Senate of the United States, as umpire, the question whether interest should be allowed on the sums found due them. The Senate of the United States, as umpire, on September 5, 1850, found that interest should be allowed, in the following resolution: "Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that interest at the rate of five per cent per annum should be allowed upon the sums found due to the Eastern and Western Cherokees, respectively, from the twelfth day of June, 1838, until paid."

The Cherokees who had emigrated prior to 1835, with accessions to that date, were known as the "Old Settlers," or "Western Cherokees," and in the case of the United States v. Old Settlers, 148 U.S. 427, this court said in respect of the claim for interest:

"By the second resolution adopted by the Senate, as umpire, September 5, 1850, it was decided that interest should be allowed, at the rate of five per centum per annum, upon the sum found due the Western Cherokees, from June 12, 1838, until paid. As before stated, our conclusion is that the sum then found due was less than should have been found by the amount of $212,376.94.

"Under section 1091 of the Revised Statutes, no interest can `be allowed on any claim up to the time of the rendition of judgment thereon by the Court of Claims, unless upon a contract expressly stipulating for the payment of interest;' and in Tillson v. United States, 100 U.S. 43, it was held that a recovery of interest was not authorized under a private act referring to the Court of Claims a claim founded upon a contract with the United States, which did not expressly authorize such recovery. But in this case, the demand of interest formed a subject of difference while the negotiations were being carried on, the determination of which was provided for in the treaty itself; that determination was arrived at as prescribed, was accepted as valid and binding by the United States, and was carried into effect by the payment of $532,896.90, found due, and of $354,583.25 for interest. 9 Stat. 556, c. 91.

"In view of the terms of the jurisdictional act and the conclusion reached in reference to the amount due, it appears to us that the decision of the Senate in respect of interest is controlling, and that, therefore, interest must be allowed from June 12, 1838, upon the balance we have heretofore indicated, but not upon the item of $4,179.26, which stands upon different ground."

The Congress of the United States on numerous occasions had recognized the force of the decision of the Senate and made appropriations accordingly, appropriating the funds due as interest.

On September 30, 1850, Congress appropriated to the Eastern Cherokees, in reimbursing an amount improperly charged the treaty fund for subsistence, the sum of $189,422.76, with the provision:

"That interest be paid on the same at the rate of five per cent per annum, according to a resolution of the Senate of the fifth of September, eighteen hundred and fifty." 9 Stat. 544, 556.

On February 27, 1851, Congress, in appropriating the amount of the per capita then conceded to be due the Eastern Cherokees, to wit, $724,603.37, provided as follows:

"And interest on the above sum, at the rate of five per centum per annum, from the twelfth day of June, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, until paid, shall be paid to them out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated." 9 Stat. 570, 572.

Congress on September 30, 1850, in appropriating the amount of the per capita, then conceded to be due the Old Settlers, provided:

"That interest be allowed and paid upon the above sums due respectively to the Cherokees and Old Settlers, in pursuance of the above-mentioned award of the Senate, under the reference contained in the said eleventh article of the treaty of sixth August, eighteen hundred and forty-six." 9 Stat. 544, 556.

The question of interest was a "subject of difference while the negotiations were being carried on, the determination of which was provided for in the treaty itself" in 1846, and in the "agreement itself" in 1891, and is the same in principle as in the case of the Old Settlers.

3. Was the recovery given proper destination by the decree?

We refer to the same item, as there is really no controversy over the other three items, and the criticism as to the payment of item three is not material. If no proper agent of the Cherokee Nation to receive the $432.28 can be found, it may be received by the United States as trustee.

The jurisdictional act of March 3, 1903, provided that "both the Cherokee Nation and said Eastern Cherokees, so-called, shall be made parties to any suit which may be instituted against the United States under said section upon the claim mentioned;" and authorized the court "to render a judgment in favor of the rightful claimants, and also to determine, as between the different claimants to whom the judgment so rendered equitably belongs, either wholly or in part."

In the petition filed by the Cherokee Nation in this case it is declared that the Cherokee Nation is "a body politic," and "is, as such, the `Cherokee tribe' mentioned in section 68 of the act of Congress aforesaid [July 1, 1902, 32 Stat. 726], and authorized thereby to bring this proceeding." But the language of the section is that jurisdiction is conferred to adjudicate "any claim which the Cherokee tribe or any band thereof, arising under treaty stipulations, may have against the United States," and even if it were conceded that the Cherokee Nation could be treated as a body politic, not as a body corporate, but in the sense of a governmental community, we should say "the Cherokee tribe or any band thereof" means the Cherokee people as a people, or any band thereof, and not the Cherokee Nation as a body politic.

It should be observed that the term "Cherokee Nation" has been used as representing the people themselves; the government of the Cherokees; and the Government as trustee for all of its people, or for some of them as their rights might appear.

In the treaty of July 2, 1791, the "Cherokee Nation" was described as "all the individuals comprising the whole Cherokee Nation of Indians." In the treaty of 1835 these Indians are referred to as the "Cherokees" and as "The Cherokee Nation." In the treaty of 1846 as "The Cherokee Nation," "The Cherokee People," and "The Cherokees."

Under the first article of the treaty of 1846 the lands of the Cherokee Nation belonged to the whole Cherokee people. The lands sold east of the Mississippi river belonged to the Cherokee people as then existing as communal property. The Western Cherokees, so called, that is to say, the Old Settlers, were paid for their interest in those lands as communal owners. 148 U.S. 427. They were paid individually, a community within a community.

Mr. Chief Justice Nott treats of this matter thus:

"While the United States have always, or nearly always, treated the members of an Indian tribe as communal owners, they have never required that all the communal owners shall join in the conveyance or cession of the land. From the necessities of the case, the negotiations have been with representatives of the owners. The chiefs and headmen have ordinarily been the persons who carried on the negotiations and who signed the treaty. But they have not formed a body politic or a body corporate, and they have not assumed to hold the title or be entitled to the purchase money. They have simply acted as representatives of the owners, making the cession on their behalf, but allowing them to receive the consideration per capita. In the present case the Cherokee Nation takes the place, so far as communal ownership is involved, of the chiefs and headmen of the uncivilized tribes. This, too, is consonant with the usage of nations. The claims of individuals against a foreign power are always presented, not by them individually, but by their government. The claims are pressed as international, but the money received is received in trust, to be paid over to the persons entitled to it.

"As to those Cherokees who remained in Georgia and North Carolina, in Alabama and Tennessee, they owe no allegiance to the Cherokee Nation and the Nation owes no political protection to them. But they, as communal owners of the lands east of the Mississippi, at the time of the treaty of 1835, were equally interested, with the communal owners who were carried to the West, in the $5,000,000 fund which was the consideration of the cession, so far as it was to be distributed per capita. The Cherokee Nation was not bound to prosecute their claims against the United States for the unpaid balance of the $5,000,000 fund, but their rights were inextricably interwoven with the rights and equities of the Cherokees who were citizens of the Nation, and the Nation properly made no distinction when parting with the Outlet but demanded justice from the Cherokee point of view for all Cherokees who had been wronged by the non-fulfillment of the treaty of New Echota. As to these Eastern non-resident Cherokee aliens the Nation acted simply as an attorney collecting a debt. In its hands the moneys would be an implied trust for the benefit of the equitable owners.

"After a careful consideration of the circumstances and conditions of these cases, the court is of the opinion that the moneys awarded should be paid directly to the equitable owners."

And after referring to the present status of the Cherokee Nation as about to terminate, the Chief Justice says:

"In this condition of affairs the court must regard the Cherokee Nation as in a condition somewhat analogous to that of a trustee or receiver who has become insolvent; that is to say, as a person who should not be entrusted with the receipt and distribution of the moneys belonging to other persons."

The Court of Claims decreed that after deducting counsel fees, costs and expenses, the sum of $1,111,284.70, with interest, should be paid to the Secretary of the Interior, to be by him received and held for the uses and purposes of paying costs and expenses as stated, and then distributing the remainder "directly to the Eastern and Western Cherokees, who were parties either to the treaty of New Echota, as proclaimed May 23, 1836, or the treaty of Washington of August 6, 1846, as individuals, whether east or west of the Mississippi river, or to the legal representatives of such individuals."

The eighth finding of fact was as follows:

"The Cherokee Indians who removed west of the Mississippi prior to May 23, 1836, were called `Western Cherokees.' After the removal, under the treaty of 1835-36, of the Cherokees who had remained in the Cherokee country east of the Mississippi to the lands west of the Mississippi, the term `Western Cherokees' was no longer distinctive, and the Cherokees who had theretofore been known as such were thereafter popularly known as `Old Settlers."

"The Cherokees who were domiciled east of the Mississippi river at the time of the making of the treaty of 1835-36, according to the census just then completed, were thereafter known as `Eastern Cherokees,' the great body of whom subsequently, in 1838, moved to the lands west of the Mississippi."

So far as the "Old Settlers" are concerned, they have been fully paid and cannot be allowed to participate in this distribution. There had been a settlement with these Cherokees, which was reopened in the Old Settlers case, and they were allowed to assert any and all claims on their part against the United States. Judgment was thereafter rendered as to a portion of these claims in their favor, 148 U.S. 427, which judgment was thereafter paid in full by the United States, so that these Old Settlers have no standing in this action. And, indeed, they never had nor asserted any interest whatever in the claim herein involved and are not claimants. In the settlement of 1851, the cost of removal with which they were charged, did not diminish the five million dollar treaty fund but came entirely from the $600,000 added to that fund by the third supplemental article of the treaty of New Echota, and the payment that was made to them pursuant to the fourth article of the treaty of 1846 was not a third of the residuum of the treaty fund, but a sum equal to one-third. It was the Eastern Cherokees only who were interested in that residuum, and so article nine of that treaty provided for payment to the Eastern Cherokees of that balance, and for a fair and just settlement of all moneys due to the Cherokees and payment of the same per capita to the Eastern Cherokees. The Cherokee Nation, as such, had no interest in the claim, but officially represented the Eastern Cherokees.

The act of February 27, 1851, appropriating the amount due on the accounting under article nine of the treaty of 1846, provided that it should be in full satisfaction of all claims and demands of the Cherokee Nation and that a receipt in full should be given. The receipts as given were signed by the individual Eastern Cherokees.

We concur with the Court of Claims in the wisdom of rendering judgment in favor of the Cherokee Nation, subject to the limitation that the amount thereof should be paid to the Secretary of the Interior to be distributed directly to the parties entitled to it, but we think that the terms of the second subdivision of the fourth paragraph of the decree, in directing that the distribution be made to "the Eastern and Western Cherokees," are perhaps liable to misconstruing, although limited to those "who were parties either to the treaty of New Echota as proclaimed May 23, 1836, or the treaty of Washington of August 6, 1846, as individuals, whether east or west of the Mississippi river." This should be modified so as to direct the distribution to be made to the Eastern Cherokees as individuals, whether east or west of the Mississippi, parties to the treaties of 1835-36 and 1846, and exclusive of the Old Settlers.

In view of the language of the jurisdictional acts of 1902 and 1903 in respect of the Cherokee Nation, we are not disposed to interfere with the Court of Claims in the allowance of fees and costs.

It is true that in the replication of the Cherokee Nation to the petition of the Eastern Cherokees this paragraph occurs:

"It denies that the Cherokee Nation in securing the accounting under the agreement of December 19, 1891, did so on behalf of the Eastern Cherokees referred to, and for their exclusive use and benefit; and further denies that if it had collected or hereafter shall collect such moneys, the same would have been or will be in its hands an implied trust for the benefit of the Eastern Cherokees exclusively or otherwise."

It is also true that by the acts of June 7, 1897, June 28, 1898, and July 1, 1902, the Cherokee Nation was practically incapacitated from acting as trustee, and by section 63 of the Cherokee allotment act, 32 Stat. 725, c. 1375, it was provided that "the tribal government of the Cherokee Nation shall not continue longer than March fourth, nineteen hundred and six." But by joint resolution of March 2, 1906, Congress provided as follows:

"That the tribal existence and present tribal governments of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes or nations of Indians in the Indian Territory are hereby continued in full force and effect for all purposes under existing laws until all property of such tribes, or the proceeds thereof, shall be distributed among the individual members of said tribes unless hereafter otherwise provided by law."

Nevertheless, taking the entire record together, the various treaties, and acts of Congress, and of the Cherokee Councils, and the language of the jurisdictional acts of 1902 and 1903, we leave the decree as it is in respect to counsel fees and costs.

4. The Eastern and Emigrant Cherokees, in respect of whom it is stated in their petition, "That they number about 4,500 persons, more or less, all Eastern Emigrant Cherokees, residing for the most part in Cherokee, Graham, Swain, Clay, and Macon Counties, North Carolina, some in north Georgia, northern Alabama, and eastern Tennessee, together with about 1,500 emigrants, portions of their various families, gone West, nearly all of whom have been recognized as citizens and who compose a large portion of those persons heretofore known as the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, and others of the same class, whose names or those of whose ancestors may be found on the rolls of 1835 and 1838," asked that one-fourth part of the whole sum recovered be set apart for them as their distributive share. But we think they are only entitled to receive the per capita payment with the Eastern Cherokees, and should obtain that payment accordingly.

The result is, that with the modification of the second subdivision of the fourth paragraph of the decree, relating to the $1,111,284.70 with interest, above indicated, the decree of the Court of Claims is

Affirmed.