72 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
Attorney General Woodbury (An. Rep’t, 1915, vol. 2, p. 499) 
said: 
If the Indian tribes are wards of the Federal Government and 
owe no allegiance to any state; and it the power over the Indian 
tribes rests with the Federal Government because it exists nowhere 
else: and if, from necessity, there can be no divided authority, then 
the jurisdiction of Congress must be exclusive. 
Federal and state authorities agree that state laws do not apply 
to Indians living in their tribal relations. This doctrine is enunciated 
in the case of State v. Campbell, 53 Minn. 354, in which Judge 
Mitchel speaking for the court says, “It would never do to have 
both the United States and the states legislating on the same subject.” 
In the case of Peters v. Milan, 111 Fed. 244, the Court held: 
That so long as the Indians retain their tribal relations and con- 
tinue to be wards of the National Government, the control and man- 
agement of them with respect to their tribal affairs is in the Federal 
Government, irrespective of the question of the title of the lands 
upon which, for the time being, they may be located. 
From the facts of the case it appears that the Indians of the 
State of New York are living in tribal relations and that they main- 
tain “governments” recognized by the state and the federal legis- 
latures. That the State of New York has no jurisdiction over these 
Indians in the matter of enforcing state laws or of legislating for 
them is asserted in the opinion rendered in the case of United States 
of America ex rel. John Lynn against Frederick Hamilton and 
others, in a case of an alleged violation of the state conservation 
laws by Indians resident upon their reservations. 
Title of the Indian to Lands and Territory 
At the time of the European invasion of America in general, and 
of New York in particular, it was the common belief and practice by 
both Indians and whites that land and territory might be taken by 
conquest. 
In America, Indian tribes took territory from one another just as 
the peoples of Europe did. The Iroquois who conquered much of 
the region now embraced within the boundaries of New York State 
took most of this land by conquest. They recognized title by con- 
quest as well as by treaty. They even refused to allow their con- 
quered wards, for example, the Delawares, to sell land to the whites 
without the permission of the Five Nations’ Council. 
It is true that the European colonists secured territory by any 
means within their power. What these colonists did is not of imme- 
