US v. Winans summary

United States v. Winans (1905)

Situation: After the Winans brothers purchased land on the Washington side of the Columbia River, erected fences around the property and fishwheels in the river, the Yakima Indians could no longer reach some of their traditional fishing places. The tribe went to court to enforce an 1855 treaty which guaranteed their "right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary buildings for curing them . . ."

Decision: In 1905 the US Supreme Court upheld the tribe’s right, even when the "usual and accustomed places" were outside reservation boundaries and were owned by non-Indians. The Court noted that the right to fish and to access traditional fishing grounds was not a special right granted by the government through the treaty. Rather, the treaty simply acknowledged a right the Indians already possessed and reserved it for their current and future use.

Implications: This was one of the first US Supreme Court cases to uphold Indian fishing treaty rights in general. As such it became a foundation of the Boldt decision and related treaty rights cases of the 1970s and '80s. It also defined a specific dimension of the right: the role access plays as part of a general treaty right to fish. The Court says that any right to fish in the "usual and accustomed places" means nothing unless the tribal members can actually reach those places. And it concludes that the treaty right to fish takes precedence over any private property claim that may prevent tribal members from exercising their treaty rights. The Indians may have ceded lands, but they never gave up their right to fish from them—no matter who owns them.