Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock

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Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock

Argued October 23, 1902
Decided January 5, 1903

Full case name:	Lone Wolf, Principal Chief of the Kiowas, et al., Appellants., v. Ethan A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, et al, Appellees.

Citations:	187 U.S. 553; 187 U.S. 553, 23 S.Ct. 216, 47 L.Ed. 299

Prior history:	19 App. D. C. 315

Holding

Congress has plenary power to unilaterally abrogate treaty obligations between the United States and Native American tribes.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
Associate Justices: John Marshall Harlan, David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, George Shiras, Jr., Edward Douglass White, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, Joseph McKenna, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Case opinions

Majority by: White
Joined by: Brewer, Brown, Fuller, Holmes, Peckham, McKenna, Shiras
Concurrence/dissent by: Harlan

Laws applied

U. S. Constitution, Article V

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1903) is a United States Supreme Court decision which declared that the "plenary power" of the United States Congress gave it authority to unilaterally abrogate treaty obligations between the United States and Native American tribes. The decision marked a departure from the holdings of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia, which had given greater respect to the autonomy of Native American tribes.

1 Facts
2 Holding
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Facts

In 1867 the United States and the Kiowa and Comanche tribes entered into the first of three treaties collectively referred to as the Medicine Lodge Treaty. The treaties created a reservation for their use, and were eventually joined by the Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho tribes.

The treaty required the approval of three-fourths of adult males on the reservation in order to for any portion of the reservation to be ceded.

Thereafter, Congress modified how the treaty alloted land without obtaining consent as provided for in the treaty, effectively removing millions of acres of land from the reservation.

[edit] Holding

The Court held that Congress had the authority to void treaty obligations with Native American tribes because it had an inherent "plenary power":

"Plenary authority over the tribal relations of the Indians has been exercised by Congress from the beginning, and the power has always been deemed a political one, not subject to be controlled by the judicial department of the government." Lone Wolf at 565.

The decision was based, among other things, on a paternalistic view of the United States' relationship with the tribes:

"These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food. Dependent for their political rights. They own no allegiance to the states, and receive from them no protection. Because of the local ill feeling, the people of the states where they are found are often their deadliest enemies. From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized by the executive and by Congress, and by this court, whenever the question has arisen." Lone Wolf at 567, quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 (1885).

Many other treaties between Native American tribes and the United States were unilaterally modified by Congress in subsequent years, in part relying on the decision in Lone Wolf.