Cite as: 586 U. S. ___ (2019)
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Syllabus
precedent tells the Court that the tax must be pre-empted. In Tulee, for example, the fishing right reserved by the Yakamas in the treaty was held to pre-empt the application to the Yakamas of a state law requiring fishermen to buy fishing licenses. 315 U. S., at 684. The Court concluded that “such exaction of fees as a prerequisite to the enjoyment of” a right reserved in the treaty “cannot be reconciled with a fair construction of the treaty.” Id., at 685. If the cost of a fishing license interferes with the right to fish, so must a tax imposed on travel with goods (here fuel) interfere with the right to travel. Pp. 10–18.
- Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Ginsburg, concluded that the 1855 treaty guarantees tribal members the right to move their goods, including fuel, to and from market freely. When dealing with a tribal treaty, a court must “give effect to the terms as the Indians themselves would have understood them.” Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U. S. 172, 196. The Yakamas’ understanding of the terms of the 1855 treaty can be found in a set of unchallenged factual findings in Yakama Indian Nation v. Flores, 955 F. Supp. 1229, which are binding here and sufficient to resolve this case. They provide “no evidence [suggesting] that the term ‘in common with’ placed Indians in the same category as non-Indians with respect to any tax or fee the latter must bear with respect to public roads.” Id., at 1247. Instead, they suggest that the Yakamas understood the treaty’s right-to-travel provision to provide them “with the right to travel on all public highways without being subject to any licensing and permitting fees related to the exercise of that right while engaged in the transportation of tribal goods.” Id., at 1262. A wealth of historical evidence confirms this understanding. “Far-reaching travel was an intrinsic ingredient in virtually every aspect of Yakama culture,” and travel for purposes of trade was so important to their “way of life that they could not have performed and functioned as a distinct culture” without it. Id., at 1238. Everyone then understood that the treaty would protect the Yakamas’ preexisting right to take goods to and from market freely throughout its traditional trading area. The State reads the treaty only as a promise to tribal members of the right to venture out of their reservation and use the public highways like everyone else. But the record shows that the consideration the Yakamas supplied–millions of acres desperately wanted by the United States to settle the Washington Territory–was worth far more than an abject promise they would not be made prisoners on their reservation. This Court’s cases interpreting the treaty’s neighboring and parallel right-to-fish provision further confirm this understanding. See, e. g., United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371. Pp. 1–11.
Breyer, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an
