Moreover, the Tribe has since been afforded an opportunity to recover additional compensation for the ceded lands, in light of the "unconscionable" amount paid in 1906. 20 Ind. Cl. Comm'n, at 530. Yet in that proceeding, which resulted in an award to the Tribe of over $4 million, id., at 543, the Tribe apparently agreed that the "highest and best uses" for the ceded lands were commercial lumbering and livestock grazing, again without mention of any hunting or fishing rights." The absence of specific compensation for the rights at issue is entirely consistent with our interpretation of the 1901 Agreement.

VII

Thus, even though "legal ambiguities are resolved to the benefit of the Indians," DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 447 (1975), courts cannot ignore plain language that, viewed in historical context and given a "fair appraisal," Washington v. Washington Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S., at 675, clearly runs counter to a tribe's later claims. Careful examination of the entire record in this case leaves us with the firm conviction that the exclusive right to hunt, fish, and gather roots, berries, and seeds on the lands reserved to the Klamath Tribe by the 1864 Treaty was not intended to survive as a special right to be free of state regulation in the ceded lands that were outside the reservation after the 1901 Agreement. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE POWELL took no part in the decision of this case.

"The Indian Claims Commission's findings of fact include a reference to the "subsistence" value of nonlumbering and nongrazing areas within the ceded lands, without further definition of the term. 20 Ind. Cl. Comm'n, at 536. To the extent that this indicates that the Commission considered hunting, fishing, and gathering of food in determining the value of the land, however, it further undercuts the Tribe's reliance on an alleged failure of compensation for hunting and fishing rights.

753

MARSHALL, J., dissenting

JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

The Court today holds that the Klamath Tribe has no special right to hunt and fish on certain lands although it has done so undisturbed from time immemorial. Instead, the

Tribe is determined to be subject to state regulation to the same extent as any other person in the State of Oregon. This Court has in the past recognized that Indian hunting and fishing rights-even if nonexclusive, and even if existing apart from reservation lands-are valuable property rights, not fully subject to state regulation and not to be deemed abrogated without explicit indication. Although all agree that hunting and fishing have historically been vital to the continued prosperity of the Klamath, the Court today assumes that the Klamath Tribe silently gave up its rights to hunt and fish on these lands in a 1901 Agreement, approved by Congress in 1906, that had no purpose other than to benefit the Tribe for a previous injustice. It reaches this conclusion even though there is no historical evidence that any party to the Agreement envisioned it as having the effect of altering tribal hunting and fishing practices, and even though hunting and fishing practices did not in fact change as a result of the Agreement. Although I agree that the boilerplate language of the Agreement can be read as the Court does, I also believe that such a reading is not necessary, ignores the Agreement's historical context, and is not faithful to the wellestablished principles that Indian treaties are to be interpreted as they were likely understood by the tribe and that doubts concerning the meaning of a treaty should be resolved in favor of the tribe. Accordingly, I dissent.

'See, e. g., United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U. S. 371, 422-423 (1980); Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United States, 391 U. S. 404 (1968); Tulee v. Washington, 315 U. S. 681 (1942).

'See Washington v. Washington Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 675-676 (1979); Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, 631 (1970); see also Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United

473 U. S.

MARSHALL, J., dissenting

I

I will only briefly summarize the relevant history of the Klamath Reservation. As the Court explains, in 1864 the Klamath Tribe entered into a treaty with the United States whereby it agreed to settle on a reservation of 1.9 million acres in south central Oregon. Treaty of Oct. 14, 1864, 16 Stat. 707. This land was a small part of the 22 million acres of land to which the Klamath had held aboriginal title. As the Court points out: "The 1864 Treaty also provided that the [Klamath Tribe] would have... 'the exclusive right of taking fish in the streams and lakes, included in said reservation, and of gathering edible roots, seeds, and berries within its limits."" Ante, at 755. Although the borders of the reservation soon became the subject of some dispute, the purposes of the Treaty have always been clear. These purposes, and the importance of Indian hunting and fishing rights to their accomplishment, were well stated in a report to Congress by a Commission appointed to study the later boundary dispute:

"It was evidently a principal object of the treaty to draw the Indians in from the large extent of territory over which they were roaming, subject to constant collisions with the steadily encroaching whites, and to concentrate them on an area much more limited, but which would still be ample to provide them with the means of subsistence.

"To attain this, the marked tendency of the treaty and the emphatic testimony of the Indians seek to make all the boundaries mountain ridges, a purpose of which the nature of the country renders easy of accomplishment on all sides except the north.

"There is no provision in the treaty, however, for the support of the Indians by the Government, and as the

States, supra, at 413 (the intention to abrogate treaty rights is not to be lightly imputed to Congress).

753

MARSHALL, J., dissenting

high altitude and the severity of the climate are unfavorable to the cultivation of cereals, their subsistence depended upon natural products, consisting principally of game, fish, wild roots, and seeds. These mountain barriers, therefore, must include a territory frequented by game, streams stocked with fish, and ground producing the roots and seeds which formed so large a portion of the subsistence of the Indians." S. Doc. No. 93, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., 6–7 (1897) (Klamath Boundary Commission Report).

The boundaries of the reservation that was eventually established pursuant to the Treaty, however, contained only about two-thirds of the land promised the Klamath Tribe, and among the areas left outside the reservation were tribal hunting, fishing, and gathering grounds of substantial importance. These areas had been specifically included in the Treaty's definition of the planned reservation at the Tribe's insistence; but, as the result of an erroneous 1871 survey, over 617,000 acres of land promised to the Tribe were excluded from the newly established reservation. As a result of the erroneous survey and in violation of the Treaty, nonIndians began to enter on the land for stock grazing and, to a lesser extent, for settlement. See, e. g., S. Exec. Doc. No. 129, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., 4-6, 8-9, 11, 17 (1894) (various documents noting grazing uses and relatively light settlement); see also n. 5, infra. The Klamath vehemently and repeatedly protested these entrances, but nevertheless continued to hunt and fish on the excluded land. See S. Doc. No. 93, supra, at 11, 15-16, 18. The protests continued for decades, and eventually led to Congress' establishment of a Boundary Commission to determine the proper boundaries of the reservation and to determine the value of the erroneously excluded land. Act of June 10, 1896, ch. 398, 29 Stat. 321, 342.

The Boundary Commission went to the reservation and interviewed large numbers of Klamath. Tribal elders all

MARSHALL, J., dissenting

473 U. S.

insisted that they were sure that the disputed land was supposed to be in the reservation. They had explicitly demanded the land's inclusion in the 1864 Treaty, they explained, because of the land's traditional importance in the Tribe's essential hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. The Commissioners inspected the land and found a tribal fishing site upon which a stone dam had been constructed and maintained by the Tribe to aid in gathering large numbers of fish. The Commission concluded that the Klamath's complaints were largely justified and deserving of redress."

The Commission determined, pursuant to the Tribe's desires, that redress would take the form of officially ceding the excluded land back to the United States for compensation, leaving the border of the reservation where it had been erroneously set. As the Court notes, however, the Commission determined the value of the excluded land with no reference to its use for hunting, fishing, or gathering-basing valuation on its use for timber and stock grazing. Yet the Commission knew the land's importance to the Tribe for hunting and fishing, since this was the basis of the Commission's finding that it had been erroneously excluded from the reservation. Similarly, during the course of the two years of negotiations toward an agreement, there was no reference to any cessation of hunting, fishing, or gathering activity on the land in question, nor, it is true, to the continuing of such activity. The

'The Boundary Commission concluded its report as follows:

"In conclusion, we respectfully submit that during all this long period of thirty-two years these Indians have exhibited a patient and unwavering confidence in the justice of the Government demanding the highest commendation.

"Believing themselves to be grievously wronged by the white settlements on land they considered secured to them by solemn pledge of the Government and from which their subsistence was largely drawn, they yet endured all the aggravating conditions of these years, resisting all the allurements of the adjacent and kindred tribes during the [recent war] and remained loyal and true." S. Doc. No. 93, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 (1897).