United States v. Winans
Headline: Treaty protects Yakima Nation fishing at historic Columbia River sites; Court limits property owners and state fishing licenses from fully excluding tribal fishers, reversing a lower court ruling.
Holding:
- Protects tribal fishing at traditional sites despite private riverfront ownership.
- Prevents state licenses from creating exclusive control that bars tribal fishers.
- Sends the case back to a lower court to sort practical accommodations.
Summary
Background
A group of Yakima Nation members sued landowners and the State of Washington after being blocked from fishing at their traditional Columbia River sites. The landowners hold patents from the United States and state grants to adjacent shore land and use state licenses for fish wheels. The dispute turned on an 1859 treaty that reserved to the tribes the right to take fish at their usual and accustomed places and to erect temporary buildings for curing fish.
Reasoning
The key question was whether the treaty simply gave the Indians whatever fishing access an ordinary settler would have, or whether it preserved a tribal right that survives private patents and state action. The Court concluded the treaty reserved to the Yakima people a continuing right to take fish at their usual places, to cross land to reach those places, and to erect temporary structures needed for curing fish. Those reserved rights run against the United States, its grantees, the State, and the State’s grantees. A state license to operate a fish wheel does not give landowners the power to exclude tribal fishers.
Real world impact
The decision protects tribal members’ access to traditional fishing sites even when the adjacent land has been privately patented or licensed for devices like fish wheels. The case is sent back to the lower court to work out how to accommodate those treaty rights in specific facts. The ruling requires courts and officials to balance private uses and state licenses against treaty-reserved tribal fishing rights.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice White dissented. The opinion does not include his full reasoning in this excerpt, but his disagreement was noted by the Court.
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