Narragansett land claim
Encyclopedia
The Narragansett land claim was one of the first litigations of aboriginal title in the United States
Aboriginal title in the United States
The United States was the first jurisdiction to acknowledge the common law doctrine of aboriginal title...

 in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Oneida I
Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. State v. Oneida County
Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. State v. Oneida Cnty., 414 U.S. 661 , is a landmark decision concerning aboriginal title in the United States...

(1974) decision. The Narragansett claimed a few thousand acres of land in and around Charlestown, Rhode Island
Charlestown, Rhode Island
Charlestown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2010 census.-History:Charlestown is named after King Charles II, and was incorporated in 1738. The area was formerly part of the town of Westerly...

, challenging a variety of early 19th century conveyances as violations of the Nonintercourse Act, suing both the state and private land owners.

Judge Raymond James Pettine
Raymond James Pettine
Raymond James Pettine was a United States federal judge.Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Pettine received a LL.B. from Boston University School of Law in 1937 and a LL.M. from Boston University School of Law in 1940...

 of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island
United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island
The United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Rhode Island. The District Court was created in 1790 when Rhode Island ratified the Constitution...

 granted the Narragansett
Narragansett (tribe)
The Narragansett tribe are an Algonquian Native American tribe from Rhode Island. In 1983 they regained federal recognition as the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled against their request that the Department of Interior take land into trust...

's motion to strike the state's affirmative defense
Affirmative defense
A defendant offers an affirmative defense when responding to a plaintiff's claim in common law jurisdictions, or, more familiarly, in criminal law. Essentially, the defendant affirms that the condition is occurring or has occurred but offers a defense that bars, or prevents, the plaintiff's claim. ...

s and other defenses and denied the state's necessary party motion and motion to dismiss. Altogether, the court rejected the state's defenses of: sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution....

, laches
Laches (equity)
Laches is an "unreasonable delay pursuing a right or claim...in a way that prejudices the [opposing] party" When asserted in litigation, it is an equitable defense, or doctrine...

, statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...

/adverse possession
Adverse possession
Adverse possession is a process by which premises can change ownership. It is a common law concept concerning the title to real property . By adverse possession, title to another's real property can be acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true...

, estoppel
Estoppel
Estoppel in its broadest sense is a legal term referring to a series of legal and equitable doctrines that preclude "a person from denying or asserting anything to the contrary of that which has, in contemplation of law, been established as the truth, either by the acts of judicial or legislative...

 by sale, operation of state law, and public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...

.

After the decision, Congress settled the claim with the Rhode Island Claims Settlement Act (RICSA), the first of many Indian Land Claims Settlements
Indian Land Claims Settlements
Indian Land Claims Settlements are settlements of Native American land claims by the United States Congress, codified in 25 U.S.C. ch. 19.In several instances, these settlements ended live claims of aboriginal title in the United States...

, extinguishing all aboriginal title
Aboriginal title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism...

 in Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

 in exchange for $3.5 million. The Narragansett claim was "the first of the eastern land claims to be settled."

Background

A history of the Narragansett tribe
Narragansett (tribe)
The Narragansett tribe are an Algonquian Native American tribe from Rhode Island. In 1983 they regained federal recognition as the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled against their request that the Department of Interior take land into trust...

's dealings with Rhode Island, from the perspective of 19th century judges, can be found in the Rhode Island Supreme Court
Rhode Island Supreme Court
The Rhode Island Supreme Court, founded in 1747, is the court of last resort in the U.S. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The Court consists of a chief justice and four associate justices. The current Justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court are:*Chief Justice Paul A...

's decision in In re Narragansett Indians (1898). The case did not involve any case and controversy, but rather was referred to the court by the Rhode Island Senate to opine on the constitutionality of an 1880 law disbanding the tribe (the same law was held irrelevant in the 1976 federal litigation). Additionally, the Senate certified the questions of: whether certain quitclaim deeds executed by the tribe were valid; whether the state could acquire valid title under the 1880 law; whether the tribe was abolished by the law; and whether those to whom the state conveyed title under the 1880 law had valid title. The court upheld the statute and answered all the questions in the affirmative.

The court began with an attack upon the Narragansett's status as indigenous:
The people in Rhode Island, in our day, calling themselves Narragansetts, are, properly speaking, not Narragansetts at all, but, at best, only a decayed remnant of the Niantics, a tribe tributary to the Narragansetts, with whom the survivors of the latter took refuge after the Great Swamp Fight; the less celebrated tribe adopting and being known thenceforward by the more famous name of their once powerful neighbors, the Narragansetts.


Next, the court reviewed the power of a sachem
Sachem
A sachem[p] or sagamore is a paramount chief among the Algonquians or other northeast American tribes. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages...

to conclude a land conveyance, remarking that they exercised "absolute monarchie over the people." The court next quoted extensively from Chief Justice John Marshall
John Marshall
John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...

's opinion in Johnson v. M'Intosh
Johnson v. M'Intosh
Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. 543 , is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that held that private citizens could not purchase lands from Native Americans...

(1823). By comparison, the court claims, Roger Williams
Roger Williams (theologian)
Roger Williams was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America,...

 "denied the justice of the white man's laws as to Indian lands [which] very largely ignored the right of the Indian." The court quoted with approval Williams' claim that the land of Rhode Island was not "purchased or obtained" but rather obtained from "Cannonicus
Canonicus
Canonicus was a Native American chief of the Narragansett. He was a firm friend of English settlers.-Biography:...

 but by gift.” Only out of a desire to avoid conflicts with neighboring colonies, the court proceeds, did Williams obtain a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1643 or 1644.

The court next reviews a 1644 document by which the Naragansett's purported to "submit, subject, and give over ourselves, peoples, lands, rights, inheritances, and possessions whatsoever, in ourselves and our heires successively forever, unto the protection, care and government" of the King of England. The court did not claim this document affected the Narragansett's land title. The court reviews the text of the royal charter, rebutting the argument that the charter was "evidence that the crown recognized the Indian title as paramount to their own."

The court details the opposition of Williams and Rhode Island to the 1659 Atherton purchase from the Narragansett (through the sachem Coginaquand) by settlers from Connecticut. The same group of settlers in September 1660 demanded and received another tract from the Narragansett's as punishment from some "injuries alleged." The Atherton purchase was re-recited in 1662. What follows was a 40 year struggle between Rhode Island and Connecticut over whose territory (and royal charter) included the Narragansett lands. Due to the expenses of this dispute, the opinion claims, the Rhode Island legislature in 1707 authorized a survey to identify vacant Naraggansett lands. In 1709, Rhode Island obtained some sort of conveyance to nearly all the vacant lands, which were within the area claimed by Connecticut.
The opinion next reviews the Rhode Island statutes which prohibited the acquisition of Indian lands without the consent of the colony. Two such ratifications occurred in 1659 and 1682. From 1713 to 1773, a variety of legislation was passed regarding the lands of Ninigret
Ninigret
thumb|Ninigret in 1681, painting currently at the [[Rhode Island School of Design Museum]]Ninigret was a seventeenth century sachem of the eastern Niantic Native American tribe in New England. Ninigret allied with the English settlers and Narragansetts against the Pequots...

. Due to the succession disputes following Ninigret's death, the legislature modified the prohibition to require the approval of a certain tribal counsel and a committee of the legislature in 1779. Controversial conveyances occurred in 1800, 1803, 1811, 1813, and 1818—plus "many others." From 1718 to 1840 various laws were passed exempting the Narragansett's from various forms of taxation, barring most suits against Narragansetts, and so on. In 1840 an Indian commission was appointed whose responsibilities included overseeing further conveyances of land. According to the court:
The hold of the Narragansetts, even in civil matters, grew more and more feeble, and they gradually became more and more dependent upon the state, until their moribund condition as a tribe became apparent even to themselves. . . . For at least 30 years before the passage of [the 1880 law under review], it was apparent that the Narragansett tribe had become extinct in all but name. Its members had even ceased to be red men, for their complexions had been darkened by the plentiful infusion of negro blood, or bleached by the admixture of blood from Caucasian veins.


In 1852, a committee was formed to consider proposals to terminate the Narragansett's tribal status, which was suggested in 1857, 1859, and 1866. The 1880 law was a result of this process. The act called for the purchase of all remaining tribal lands and reservations, dissolved the tribe, and ended all law's conferring special legal status on Narragansetts. The opinion briefly considers the mentions of Indians in the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...

 and United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

 and finds no obstacle to the 1880 act in those texts of the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence up to that time. Regarding Worcester v. Georgia
Worcester v. Georgia
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional.The...

(1832), the court remarks:
Some of the reasoning in the foregoing opinion seems to us faulty and not well grounded. . . . It is a very strained interpretation to say that the power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes, even in combination with the treaty-making power, carries with it the power to appropriate title to land belonging to the states, an ultimate title, resembling in some respects a reversionary interest; a title not even belonging to the Indians, though underlying the Indian title. Regulation is not appropriation.


Finally, the court opined that the act might even have been valid if the Narragansett's were federally recognized:
Be all that as it may, however, it seems to be recognized that a time may arrive when a tribe of Indians may become so degraded or reduced in numbers as to lose the power of self-government, and that then the local law must from necessity be extended over them. . . .Even if the Narragansetts had ever been recognized by the United States as a tribe of Indians, it would seem as if the state would be authorized, by the necessities of the case, to take action.

Litigation

Narragansett I

Two lawsuits by the Narragansett against the State of Rhode Island (C.A. No. 750005) and private landowners (C.A. No. 750006) were consolidated in front of Judge Pettine. The tribe claimed aboriginal title
Aboriginal title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism...

 to lands in and around Charlestown, Rhode Island
Charlestown, Rhode Island
Charlestown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2010 census.-History:Charlestown is named after King Charles II, and was incorporated in 1738. The area was formerly part of the town of Westerly...

, and that any title claimed by the defendants would violate the Nonintercourse Act.

Motion to strike

Citing Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton
Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton
Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370 , was a landmark decision regarding aboriginal title in the United States...

(1st Cir. 1975) and other various Supreme Court decisions, the court held that the Nonintercourse Act applied to the lands in question. The court rejected all the defendant's affirmative defenses: laches, statute of limitations/adverse possession, estoppel by sale, operation of state law, and public policy. The court noted that: "The broad principle dictated by the Supremacy Clause
Supremacy Clause
Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, establishes the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Treaties, and Federal Statutes as "the supreme law of the land." The text decrees these to be the highest form of law in the U.S...

 . . . that state statutes cannot supersede federally created rights has been applied with especial vigor to the question of Indian title as a result of the federal government's 'unique obligation toward the Indians.” Thus, the court held that the state's attempt to disband the tribe in 1880 and the various state services provided to the tribe were irrelevant. The court held that the defendant's purported affirmative defenses would not defeat the tribe's claim if it proved the elements of a prima facie case; in other words, they were not affirmative defenses.

The court also rejected the defendant's attempts to rebut the elements of the tribe's prima facie case. First, the court rejected the state's argument that "aboriginal title alone does not mean a title having the protection of the Non-Intercourse Act"; the court held just the opposite. Next, the court held that it was irrelevant that the tribe was incorporated under state law and that the tribe was not federally recognized. Finally, the court held that the proviso of the Nonintercourse Acts between 1793 and 1802—relating to "Indians living on lands surrounded by settlements"---holding that the proviso was only "addressed to transactions by individual Indians living in 'white' settlements and has no application to land to which a tribal right of occupancy is claimed."

The Narragansett prevailed despite the heightened standard of review for a Rule 12(f) motion to strike, exceeding the standard the tribe would have had to carry at trial or on summary judgement.

Necessary party motion
The tribe did not move to strike the defendant's claim that the United States was a necessary party. However, the court rejected the defendant's necessary party motion under Rule 19(a), holding that the United States was a "necessary," but not an "indispensable" party. Thus, although the federal government could have brought the tribe's claim on its behalf, the tribe was also able to bring the claim on its own. However, the court did recognize that "all parties to this litigation to welcome the voluntary intervention of the United States, and it therefore extends a standing invitation to the United States to do so."

Motion to dismiss
The defendant's also filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the suit was a nonjusticiable political question
Political question
In American Constitutional law, the political question doctrine is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has authority to hear and...

, which the court denied. Citing Baker v. Carr
Baker v. Carr
Baker v. Carr, , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that redistricting issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases...

(1962), the court found that the action did not meet the elements of a political question.

Narragansett II

In a second opinion for the consolidated cases, Judge Pettine rejected the defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction
Subject-matter jurisdiction
Subject-matter jurisdiction is the authority of a court to hear cases of a particular type or cases relating to a specific subject matter. For instance, bankruptcy court only has the authority to hear bankruptcy cases....

 on the basis of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was passed by the Congress on March 4, 1794, and was ratified on February 7, 1795, deals with each state's sovereign immunity. This amendment was adopted in order to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Chisholm v...

. Pettine found that the tribe's claims fell with the Ex parte Young
Ex parte Young
Ex parte Young, , is a United States Supreme Court case that allows suits in federal courts against officials acting on behalf of states of the union to proceed despite the State's Sovereign immunity, when the State acted unconstitutionally.-Facts:...

(1908) exception to state sovereign immunity, citing Supreme Court precedents involving suits over possession of land. The court distinguished "suits seeking the return of specific property . . . from suits asking money damages payable out of the public treasury." Because the tribes alleged that the state's actions violated the Indian Commerce Clause and Supremacy Clause (via the Nonintercourse Act) of the Constitution, the tribe's claim was allowed under the Ex parte Young doctrine. The court did not reach the tribe's alternative argument that the state had consented to suit.

While not expressly overruled, Narragansett II is called into serious question by the Supreme Court's subsequent holding in Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho
Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho
Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261 , was an important U.S. Supreme Court precedent for aboriginal title in the United States and sovereign immunity in the United States...

(1997).

Rhode Island Claims Settlement Act

The parties reached a settlement on February 28, 1978, which—because it extinguished the tribe's aboriginal title—required Congressional legislation. Congress passed the Rhode Island Claims Settlement Act (RICSA) on September 30, 1978. In exchange for extinguishing the Narragansett's claim, the Act required the Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of the Interior
The Secretary of the Interior may refer to:* The United States Secretary of the Interior* The Secretario de Gobernación Secretary of the Interior...

 to acquire approximately 900 acres of privately held land for the Narragansett and required the state to convey certain other publicly held lands to the Narragansett Corporation. The Act also created a $3.5 million settlement fund, funded by a federal appropriation. The Act also required the Governor to negotiate for the tribe an option to purchase additional privately held lands, exercisable by the Secretary for the tribe, with the option payment not to exceed 5% of the fair market value of the lands and the total price not to exceed the amount of the settlement fund.

The terms of the agreement extended state civil and criminal jurisdiction to the settlement lands. No state, federal, or local property tax was to be assessed on the lands.

That Act extinguished all aboriginal title in Rhode Island, including title held by other tribes. Thus, the Act extinguished the claim of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, even though they were in no way compensated by the Act.

Further developments

The Narragansett obtained federal recognition in 1983. After the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is a 1988 United States federal law that establishes the jurisdictional framework that governs Indian gaming. There was no federal gaming structure before this act...

 (1988), the RICSA was amended to render the lands non-gaming eligible in 1996. The Narragansett have so far been unsuccessful in their efforts to establish a Native American gaming enterprise.

Carcieri v. Salazar

The tribe purchased 31 additional acres in Charlestown in 1991. After being denied a land use permit, the Narragansett attempted to convey the lands in trust to the Secretary of the Interior under the Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 the Indian New Deal, was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans, including Alaska Natives...

 of 1934 (which would have the effect of ending state and local jurisdiction). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Carcieri v. Salazar
Carcieri v. Salazar
Carcieri v. Salazar, No. 07-526 , was a recent case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the term "now under Federal jurisdiction" referred only to tribes that were federally recognized when the Indian Reorganization Act became law, and the federal government could not take...

(2009) that only tribes that were federally recognized as of 1934 could do so.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK