CASES ADJUDGED

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

AT

OCTOBER TERM, 1938.

CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MINNESOTA v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

No. 666. Argued March 30, 1939. Decided April 17, 1939.

1. The Act of January 14, 1889, pursuant to which the bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota ceded their reservations to the United States and the United States undertook to sell land and timber, hold the proceeds in trust, expend income for purposes specified, and ultimately distribute the principal, all for the benefit of the Indians, did not create a conventional trust or abdicate guardianship over the Indians as tribal Indians. P. 3.

2. Congress therefore retained the power to' make expenditures from the fund for the benefit of the Indians in ways not contemplated by that Act. P. 5.

88 Ct. Cls. 1, affirmed.

APPEAL from a judgment dismissing a suit brought by the above-named Indians for restoration of trust funds alleged to have been diverted by the United States.

Mr. Donald S. Holmes, with whom Mr. Webster Ballinger was on the brief, for appellants.

Mr. Raymond T. Nagle, with whom Solicitor General Jackson, Acting Assistant Attorney General Collett, and Messrs. C. W. Leaphart and William R. Sherwood were on the brief, for the United States.

161299-39-1

1

Opinion of the Court.

307 U.S.

MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

1

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims 1 dismissing a suit brought to compel restoration of trust funds alleged to have been diverted by the appellee.

3

In 1926 Congress granted permission for the bringing of the suit, which was instituted April 13, 1927. In order to permit the claim to be presented in its present form the permissive act was amended in 1934. The appellants then filed an amended petition to which the appellee responded by a general traverse. The right of appeal from the judgment of the Court of Claims is conferred by Joint Resolution of June 22, 1936.*

The suit is for the enforcement of equitable claims arising under or growing out of the Act of January 14, 1889.5 The appellants' theory is that the Act constituted an offer on the part of Congress for an agreement with the bands of Chippewas located in Minnesota, whereby, if these bands would cede the Indian title to their reservations, (which they did), the United States would sell the timber thereon and open the agricultural lands to settlement, and hold the proceeds of the timber and the lands, in trust, to expend the income for purposes specified in the statute, including payment of a portion of such income to the Indians, and to distribute the principal at the expiration of fifty years after allotments had been completed to all the members of the various bands on specified reservations.

'88 Ct. Cls. 1.

'Act of May 14, 1926, c. 300; 44 Stat. 555, as amended by Acts of April 11, 1928, c. 357, 45 Stat. 423, and June 18, 1934, c. 568, 48 Stat. 979.

'Act of June 18, 1934, c. 568, 48 Stat. 979.

1

Opinion of the Court.

The circumstances leading to the adoption of the Act and its relevant sections appear in earlier decisions of this Court and need not here be repeated.

The appellants assert that, by the Act of 1889, Congress abdicated its plenary power of administration of the Chippewas' property as tribal property, recognized that the reservations of the respective bands were not tribal property, and agreed to hold the proceeds of the ceded lands in strict and conventional trust for classes of individual Indians in accordance with the program outlined in the Act.

In this view the living Chippewas are beneficiaries of the income of the fund during the fifty year period, and individual Chippewa Indians who may be living at the expiration of the period, as a class, are remaindermen. It is urged that, as Congress has, from time to time, reimbursed the Treasury for expenditures for the benefit of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota out of the fund, and has authorized other direct expenditures from the fund for the benefit of the Indians in ways not authorized by the Act, the United States has been guilty of a diversion of trust funds and that the appellants, as the representatives of the remaindermen, are entitled, on plain principles of equity, to demand restoration of the diverted sums to the corpus.

If, as the Court of Claims has found, the Act of 1889, and the cessions made pursuant to it, did not create a technical trust, we are relieved from considering many of the contentions pressed by the appellants in that court and here. We are of opinion that the Court of Claims was right in its decision that no such trust was created.

The original tribal status of the Chippewas is described in Wilbur v. United States, 281 U. S. 206, 208,

"Wilbur v. United States, 281 U. S. 206, 209, 210; Chippewa Indians v. United States, 301 U. S. 358, 362.