Opinion of the Court
express its intent to do so.” Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 202. “There must be ‘clear evidence that Congress actually considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and Indian treaty rights on the other, and chose to resolve that conflict by abrogating the treaty.’ ” Id., at 202–203 (quoting Dion, 476 U. S., at 740); see Menominee Tribe, 391 U. S., at 412. Like the Act discussed in Mille Lacs, the Wyoming Statehood Act “makes no mention of Indian treaty rights” and “provides no clue that Congress considered the reserved rights of the [Crow Tribe] and decided to abrogate those rights when it passed the Act.” Cf. Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 203; see Wyoming Statehood Act, 26 Stat. 222. There simply is no evidence that Congress intended to abrogate the 1868 Treaty right through the Wyoming Statehood Act, much less the “ ‘clear evidence’ ” this Court’s precedent requires. Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 203.[1]
Nor is there any evidence in the treaty itself that Congress intended the hunting right to expire at statehood, or that the Crow Tribe would have understood it to do so. A treaty is “essentially a contract between two sovereign nations.” Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S., at 675. Indian treaties “must be interpreted in light of the parties’ intentions, with any ambiguities resolved in favor of the Indians,” Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 206, and the words of a treaty must be construed “ ‘in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians,’ ” Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S., at 676. If a treaty “itself defines the circumstances under which the rights would terminate,” it is to those circumstances that the Court must look to determine if the right ends at statehood. Mille
- ↑ Recall also that the Act establishing the Wyoming Territory declared that the creation of the Territory would not “impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory” unless a treaty extinguished those rights. Wyoming Territory Act, 15 Stat. 178.
