INDIANS. y 



of the Bannock tribe of Indians residing- on the Fort Hall Indian 

 Reservation in Idaho, killed 7 elk in October, 1895, on unoccupied 

 lands of the United States in Uinta County, Wyo., about 20 miles 

 southeast of Mount Hoback, and about 100 miles from the reservation, 

 contrary to the provisions of the laws of Wyoming. He was arrested 

 and imprisoned by John H. Ward, sheriff of Uinta County. The 

 United States attorney for that district secured a writ of habeas cor- 

 pus in behalf of Race Horse from the circuit court of the United 

 States for the district. The contention was luade that as the United 

 States had in 1868 made a treaty with the Bannock Indians, to which 

 tribe Race Horse belonged, guaranteeing them the right to hunt 

 upon the unoccupied lands of the United States ''so long as game 

 may be found thereon and so long as peace subsists among the whites 

 and Indians on the borders of the hunting districts," the game law of 

 Wyoming, in so far as it undertook to punish a member of this 

 tribe, was void, because in contravention of the treaty, and that, 

 therefore, the arrest and detention of Race Horse were unwarranted. 

 The circuit court upheld this contention and discharged Race Horse. 

 The case was appealed by Ward, the sheriff, to the Supreme Court of 

 the United States, which held, in a decision rendered in May, 1896, 

 that the treaty made by the United States with the Bannock Indians 

 did not give them the right to hunt within the limits of the State 

 of Wyoming in violation of its laws after the admission of Wyo- 

 miuo- as a State into the Union. In the act creating the Territory of 

 Wyoming the rights of the Indians under treaty had been expressly 

 reserved, but not so in the act enabling Wyoming to come into the 

 Union as a State, and the court held that the obligations of the treaty 

 were annulled by the admission of the State into the Union. 



In this case the Supreme Court virtually decided that in the absence 

 of a treaty to that effect an Indian hunting off his reservation is subject 

 to the State laws, even though hunting on unoccupied lands of the 

 United States. Although the point was not directly raised and formed 

 no part of the question involved in the decision, yet enough was said 

 by the court to set at rest the contention sometimes urged that the 

 game law of a State is not operative upon unoccupied lands of the 

 United States Avithin that State, and the decision is authority against 

 such a contention. 



From the foregoing considerations it may be said that generally 

 speaking the State has no jurisdiction in the case of a disregard of its 

 game laws by a tribal Indian on his reservation, l)ut that it has jurisdic- 

 tion when its game laws are violated by an Indian off his reservaticn, 

 or by any person other than an Indian on an Indian reservation. In 

 view, however, of the peculiar relations of the Federal Government to 

 the Indians, and the many treaties and acts of Congress in force, when- 

 ever it is sought to enforce the game laws on Indian reservations the 

 exact status of the reservation in (|Ucstion should l)o ascertained. 



