Ward v. Race Horse

Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 (1896), is a United States Supreme Court case argued on March 11–12, 1896, and decided on May 25, 1896. The case concerned the right of the Bannock people to hunt on unoccupied land per an 1868 treaty with the U.S. The case was decided in favor of the state of Wyoming and set a precedent that state laws had precedence over Indian treaties, massively checking tribal sovereignty and giving the Supreme Court the right to determine Congress’s implicit intentions when signing Indian Treaties. The case influenced many twentieth century cases dealing with hunting rights, conservation, and state’s rights and the precedent it set wasn’t overturned until 2019 in Herrera v. Wyoming.

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Supreme Court decision

  • 2.1 Lead opinion

• 3 Subsequent developments

  • 3.1 Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis

  • 3.2 Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians (1999)

  • 3.3 Herrera v. Wyoming (2019)

• 4 References

• 5 External links

Background

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Race Horse occurred during a time when Wyoming was being rapidly settled by white pioneers. Before the 1840s, the land that belonged to the Shoshone Nation stretched across Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon and California, Nevada and northern Utah. The lands were crossed by the Oregon and California Trails , but no significant white populations settled in the area with the exception of the Mormons moving into Utah. Once the Gold Rush hit, however, people began to pour in. There was significant amounts of violence between white settlers and the Natives whose land they were encroaching on and so the U.S. Department of the Interior began to pursue treaties with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of what is now southeast Idaho and Wyoming. Not long before treaty negotiations were to start the massacre at Bear Lake took place. In January of 1863, a company of 250 soldiers, returning from fighting Natives in California, surrounded the winter camps of the Northwestern Shoshone and viciously attacked them, killing 224 Shoshone. After this, the Northwestern Shoshone Band never fought directly with the U.S. again.

That same year, in 1863, the Shoshone-Bannock tribes signed the first Fort Bridger Treaty, allocating them a 44 million acre reservation and a promise of “ten thousand dollars worth of food and supplies annually for twenty years.” However, most of these supplies never arrived. In 1868, the second Fort Bridger Treaty was signed (ratified by the Senate in 1869) that became the basis for Race Horse. It ceded a large portion of the 44 million acres allocated to the Shoshone-Bannock tribes in 1863. Importantly, Article 4 of the treaty stated that the Shoshone-Bannock retained the right to hunt the lands off of the reservation as long as they were “unoccupied,” populated by game, and there was generally peace between whites and Indians. This condition was incredibly important. Internationally, it was very common for Native tribes to retain hunting right on lands they ceded per the Aboriginal Title . This right is not alienable or heritable by individuals and protects a communal right to land on which traditional economy – like hunting and fishing – is practiced. The right is passed down through generations, but is also heavily debated in courts. In the case of the Shoshone-Bannock the elk hunting they engaged in was both an ancient practice connecting them to the land and absolutely necessary for subsistence.

In the early 1890s, elk populations were declining due mostly to loss of habitat. After gaining statehood in 1890, Wyoming passed a laws to restrict hunting to certain seasons and generally limit elk hunting. Blame was placed on Natives over hunting elk, but around Jackson Hole, Wyoming , the Bannock tribes were not the only ones hunting. The white settlers and the officials associated with the newly established Yellowstone National Park repeatedly accused the natives of overhunting and wasting elk. However, it was the white settlers who hunted elk for pleasure and often their meat would spoil in the winter because they didn’t know how to properly store it. For example, in 1901 a party of eight pleasure hunters, led by two guides, killed 59 elk in one excursion, more than they could possibly use. In 1895, after filing numerous complaints about Native hunting with the Department of the Interior -- who maintained that they were unfounded -- the Jackson Hole constable started arresting Bannocks for hunting elk, hoping to drive them back into their reservation. In the Summer of 1895, the constable and a party of deputies arrested a group of twenty–odd Bannocks. He confiscated their meat, ration checks, and hunting pass, which meant that upon return to the reservation they would have nothing to eat. Most of them ended up escaping, fearing another massacre, one young boy was killed and a few arrested. This incident was part of a larger conflict known as the Bannock War of 1895 , which was an conflict that was minimally violent and definitely not a war, but was exaggerated by the press who were capitalizing on fears of violent Indians. Soon after, Indian Service Inspector, Province McCormick, arrived to sort out the situation. He decided to set up a test case where Bannock man John Race Horse Sr., who admitted to killing seven elk, would be tried and his case would set a precedent for the nation. The Indian Service filed a writ of habeas corpus to take the case straight to a U.S. Circuit Court . The expectation was that the case would be decided in favor of Race Horse and the Bannocks and resolve conflict over hunting and treaty rights for the rest of the nation.

Supreme Court decision

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When the case went to the Supreme Court, they ruled for Wyoming 7-1, with Justice Edward D. White authoring the lead opinion and Henry B. Brown dissenting. The 1868 Fort Bridger Treaty that established the Fort Hall Reservation stated that “they [the Bannock Indians] shall have the right to hunt upon the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon,” but the court opinion says that this “does not give them the right to exercise this privilege within the limits of that state in violation of its laws.” Race Horse’s killing of the elk was against Wyoming state law and so Wyoming won because of the equal-footing doctrine . This doctrine “ requires that all states newly admitted to the Union after the thirteen original states be admitted

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