As far as the court decision goes, I find it disappointing. Not because I personally dislike it, but because this ruling, along with similar court rulings on native hunting rights, seems to really ignore/misunderstand the original contexts in which the treaties were made.
Please chime in if I've got the wrong idea here, but this is how I see it:
188X US Gov't relegates sub-human people group to live in area A (reservation), and allowed to hunt in area A, plus area B (treaty-specified hunting grounds). White Americans can live and hunt anywhere, without restriction.
189X States begin to regulate hunting for US citizens
192X US Congress reclassifies sub-human people group as US citizens. They now have all the same legal rights as everyone else, such as the right live and hunt anywhere, including area B. Regulation of hunting in area A is up to the tribe.
So why would anyone conclude treaty-specified hunting rights in area B are broader than what WYGF determines them to be for anyone else, considering the later developments of game and fish regulation and granted citizenship?
You are forgetting that Treaties are like contracts - they do not automatically adjust to market conditions and a third party who is not a party to them has very little voice in court about the matter.
A better example would be:
Chad and George are neighbors. They are both in their late 20’s and neither has kids. It turns out Chad and George have neighboring ranches. But things have gone poorly for Chad and well for George. Chad is on the edge of bankruptcy. George and Chad reach an agreement to sell Chad’s land to George. All the terms and pricing are fairly standard, but at the last minute Chad refuses to sell unless George agrees to a provision that Chad and all of his descendants will have non-exclusive access to the sold land for hunting purposes. George is irritated by the request and has a choice - agree to this limitation or wait until Chad goes into backruptcy. But that adds legal fees, the risk another buyer would out bid him at auction and delay in access to the land for over a year, so George agrees, but he does add that he (George) personally has the right to terminate this access if he so decides at anytime after 20 years. In the end this doesn’t seem like a big deal to George, as it is common at the time for neighbors to consent to hunting access, and in any event, how much a problem could one guy hunting be? And after 20 years George figures he would just cancel (even though he is not saying that directly to Chad).
So all is well for the first 25 years, and George decides not to bother cancelling the access.
Now we are 50 years after the transaction, Chad is dead but had 4 kids who each had 4 kids - so now there are 20 descendants of Chad and all are avid hunters - making full use of the access rights negotiated for by “grandpa” Chad. George is still alive but moved to Florida and has leased all his land to his son Will to farm/ranch and otherwise manage the land. Will now realizes that while neighborly consent to hunting may have been the rule of the day 50 years ago, a modern ranch makes money by contracting exclusively to outfitters. Shortly after contracting with an outfitter, Will starts gettting complaints from the outfitter about Chad’s descendants hunting on the property. Will tells Chad’s descendants that they can’t access this land any longer. A few of Chad’s grandkids ignore this warning and Will gets his buddy, the local sheriff, to arrest them for criminal trespass. In their defense they raise Chad’s original contract with George. Will says that this is ridiculous, George gave him “keys to the ranch” so to speak and in any event many things have changed in the last 50 years. When they get to court, George as the actual owner of the land and as party to the contract is asked to provide his view. He says that the contract is still in place and that he has not canceled it even though he had the right to. The court rules in favor of Chad’s descendants.
Now Will is pissed at Chad’s kids/grandkids — but the real beef is not between the kids of Chad and Will, it is between George and Will himself. George could fix this by just terminating but he won’t — that is not Chad’s kids problem and why would they stop hunting just to please Will and the outfitter?
If you haven’t gathered yet, Chad is the Crow tribe and George is the Fed Govt and Will is Wyoming.
billingsgazette.com
