''United States v. Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co.'', 314 U.S. 339 (1941), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the power of Congress to extinguish aboriginal title is plenary and nonjusticiable but that Congress was presumed not to do so absent a clear intention.''United States v. Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co.'', . It is the leading precedent on the extinguishment of aboriginal title in the United States. The suit was brought by the federal government, on behalf of the Hualapai against the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad. The Court held that the Hualapai's

aboriginal title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

was not extinguished by (1) its lack of federal recognition or acknowledgment by treaty, statute, for formal government action; (2) the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (3) an 1854 federal statute creating the office of Surveyor General of New Mexico; (4) and 1865 statute creating the

Colorado River Indian Reservation The Colorado River Indian Tribes (Mojave language 'Aha Havasuu, Navajo language: Tó Ntsʼósíkooh Bibąąhgi Bitsįʼ Yishtłizhii Bináhásdzo) is a federally recognized tribe consisting of the four distinct ethnic groups associated with the C ...

; (5) the 1866 federal land grant to the railroad; (6) an 1870 federal statute creating the office of Surveyor General of Arizona; or (7) the 1874 forcible removal of the Hualapai to the Colorado River Indian Reservation. However, the Court held that the 1881 creation of a reservation by executive order at the request of the Hualapai extinguished the tribe's aboriginal title outside of that reservation. The case distinguished

aboriginal title in California Aboriginal title in California refers to the aboriginal title land rights of the indigenous peoples of California. The state is unique in that no Native American tribe in California is the counterparty to a ratified federal treaty. Therefore, a ...

from aboriginal title in the rest of the

Mexican Cession The Mexican Cession ( es, Cesión mexicana) is the region in the modern-day southwestern United States that Mexico originally controlled, then ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 after the Mexican–American War ...

and is frequently cited for its in-depth discussion of the test for the extinguishment of aboriginal title.

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* {{Native American rights United States Supreme Court cases Aboriginal title case law in the United States Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 1941 in United States case law Hualapai United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court Native American history of New Mexico

See also

References

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