Statement of the Case. 234 U.S. to a certain parcel of land as a part of the public domain set apart as the White Earth Reservation, and the fact that, although under the various acts of Congress above mentioned authority was given to segregate certain parcels of land from others in the reservation and to allot them to members of the Band, and O-bah-baum, an Indian woman of that tribe, had been given a trust patent, as provided for by the act of February 8, 1887, supra, and had given a mortgage to the defendant in that case upon such land, she had no right or authority so to do. It prayed that the mortgage be annulled, as being a cloud upon the Government's title. The allegations of the complaints in the second and third cases are the same, except that the allottee in the former is named Bay-bah-mah-ge-wabe and in the latter Equay-zaince, and in both cases that there are outstanding warranty deeds and mortgages, that there were intermediate parties not made parties of record, and that an accounting was asked for timber already cut and an injunction from cutting standing timber. The defendant in the first case, besides denying that the reservation was a part of the public domain and alleging that the property was that of the Indians and that after selection the allottee acquired a fee simple title, notwithstanding the acts of Congress, particularly set up the fact that O-bah-baum is a mixed blood Chippewa Indian, and one of the class referred to in the Clapp Amendment, and therefore emancipated from the pretended supervision of the Government and able to transfer her property as a citizen of the United States. The defendant also alleged that under the facts, the Indians having made affidavit that they were mixed bloods and the good faith of the defendant, the Government should be required to place the defendant in statu quo before the relief asked could be granted. The Lumber Company, defendant in the second case, and the defendants in the third case, filed 234 U.S. Statement of the Case. answers of similar purport, with the additional averment that under the facts stated the matter relating to the timber was immaterial, but if the court found against defendant's title they would account for the timber cut by them. By stipulation or introduction in evidence the following facts were made to appear: The three Indians here involved are adult Chippewa Indians, residing upon the White Earth Reservation. O-bah-baum has some white blood, derived from a remote ancestor, but not to exceed one-thirty-second; Bay-bahmah-ge-wabe has one-sixteenth of white blood, and Equayzaince has one-eighth of white blood. A question having arisen with reference to the construction of the term "mixed blood" as used in the treaty of September 30, 1854 (10 Stat. 1109), between the United States and the Chippewa Indians of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in a letter to the Indian Agent at Detroit, Michigan, said that "the term 'mixed-bloods' has been construed to mean all who are identified as having a mixture of Indian and white blood. The particular proportion of each blood is, therefore, immaterial, where the provision is so broad as that stated in the treaty.' The Indian Agent at the White Earth Reservation after the passage of the Clapp Amendment came to Washington to consult the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and was referred by him to the Land Division, and, after discussing the situation with a man represented to be in charge of such matters, it was agreed that the act did not require a showing of any definite quantum of foreign blood to constitute a mixed blood, and to his knowledge this was the construction generally adopted by those who dealt with the Indians on the White Earth Reservation. The Chief of the Land Division at the time of the passage of the Clapp Amendment testified that to his knowledge no ques Statement of the Case. 234 U. S. tion was raised as to the quantum of foreign blood. In a communication dated October 6, 1910, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs the Special Assistant to the Attorney General and the Special Indian Agent at Detroit, Minnesota, expressed the belief that the attorneys for the Government were going to contend that the term mixed blood should be interpreted to embrace only those of half or less of Indian blood, and cited a certain act of the United States (of February 6, 1909, c. 80, 35 Stat. 600) in which the term Indian was defined to include the aboriginal races inhabiting Alaska when annexed to the United States and their descendants of the whole or half blood, which act concerned the sale of liquor or firearms to an Indian or half breed. They also cited certain treaties with the Chippewas wherein it was shown that half breeds are persons of less than half blood and not regarded as Indians or members of the Chippewa nation: Article 3 of the treaty of July 29, 1837, 7 Stat. 536; article 4 of the treaty of October 4, 1842, 7 Stat. 591; article 4 of the treaty of August 2, 1847, 9 Stat. 904; article 6 of the treaty of February 22, 1855, 10 Stat. 1165; and article 4 of the treaty of March 19, 1867, 16 Stat. 719, from which it was summarized that in these treaties persons classed as half breeds or mixed bloods or less than half blood were not recognized by the Government or the Chippewas as Indians entitled to the rights and privileges of Chippewa Indians unless by special provisions of treaties, as theretofore shown. The Second Assistant Commissioner in his reply of November 19, 1910, stated that the Office was inclined to give the expressions "full bloods" and "mixed bloods" their ordinary meaning which would be more reasonable than to hold that the term full bloods included those of admitted pure blood and others above the half blood. It was also said in his letter, however, that a conference would be had with the Department of Justice, and further advice given. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs 234 U. S. Statement of the Case. said that he had never given an official construction to the term mixed blood. It was stipulated that in administering the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Clapp Amendment and especially in issuing patents thereunder, the Department had not required any statement as to the quantum of foreign blood, but had issued patents upon the showing that the applicant was a mixed blood. Several instances were shown by the records of allotments having been made to allottees on the White Earth Reservation having but one-sixteenth or onethirty-second of Indian blood, while other instances were shown where allotment had been denied because applicant was of "doubtful blood.” A white man who had resided for a long time among the Chippewa Indians stated that in the early period the terms mixed blood and half breed were synonymous, applying to one of mixed white and Indian blood, irrespective of the percentage, and that later the term mixed blood was more commonly used, while the term half breed was applied to one having nearly equal parts of white and Indian blood. The general impression of business men in and about the White Earth Reservation was that any Indian who had white blood in his veins was a mixed blood. Several very elderly Indians testified, however, that the Indians regarded the term mixed blood as applying to those having practically half white and half Indian blood. The District Court, after stating that the question was one of first impression, said that Congress intended competency to be the test and came to the conclusion that an Indian having an admixture of one-eighth white blood might come within the term, but that beyond that the white blood would not affect the capacity of the Indian to manage his own affairs, and therefore dismissed the bill in the third case and entered a decree in favor of the complainants in the other two cases. The Circuit Court of Appeals reached the conclusion that every Chippewa Argument for the United States. 234 U.S. Indian having an identifiable mixture of other than Indian blood, however small, is a mixed blood Indian and all others are full blood Indians within the meaning of the Clapp Amendment, and accordingly reversed the decree of the District Court in the first two cases and affirmed the decree in the third case. The Solicitor General, with whom Mr. C. C. Daniels and Mr. W. A. Norton, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, were on the brief, for the United States: The history of the legislation involved shows the disastrous effects resulting from its improper application. The term "mixed blood" is to be applied only to those Indians who possess a quantum of white blood amounting to one-half or more. The act should be so construed as to subserve the welldefined and well-established policy of Congress. Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Duroussea” v. United States, 6 Cranch, 307; Lionberger v. Rouse, 9 Wall. 468, 475; United States v. Freeman, 3 How. 556; United States v. Lacher, 134 U. S. 624. It has been the settled policy of Congress in dealing with the Indians to make competency alone the test for removing these restrictions. Smith v. Stevens, 10 Wall. 321, 326. Congress having declared in plain and unmistakable language that lands allotted to these Indians would be held in trust for them for a period of twenty-five years, and the assent of the Indians to a cession of their reservation having been given in reliance upon that promise, no subsequent act of Congress should be construed to revoke this promise unless couched in language so plain and certain as to leave room for no other interpretation. Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553. Assuming the competency of the white man and the incompetency of the Indians, it is but reasonable in mak |