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Cite as: 502 U. S. 251 (1992)

255

Opinion of the Court

In In re Heff, supra, at 502–503, we held that this latter provision subjected Indian allottees to plenary state jurisdiction immediately upon issuance of a trust patent (and prior to the expiration of the 25-year trust period). Congress promptly altered that disposition in the Burke Act of 1906, 34 Stat. 182, decreeing that state civil and criminal jurisdiction would lie “at the expiration of the trust period. . . when the lands have been conveyed to the Indians by patent in fee.” A proviso, however, gave the President authority, when he found an allottee “competent and capable of managing his or her affairs,” to “issu[e]. . . a patent in fee simple” prior to the expiration of the relevant trust period. Upon such a premature patenting, the proviso specified (significantly for present purposes) not that the patentee would be subject to state civil and criminal jurisdiction but that “all restrictions as to sale, incumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed.” Id., at 183. The policy of allotment came to an abrupt end in 1934 with passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. See 48 Stat. 984, 25 U. S. C. § 461 et seq. Returning to the principles of tribal self-determination and self-governance which had characterized the pre-Dawes Act era, Congress halted further allotments and extended indefinitely the existing periods of trust applicable to already allotted (but not yet fee-patented) Indian lands. See §§ 461, 462. In addition, the Act provided for restoring unallotted surplus Indian lands to tribal ownership, see § 463, and for acquiring, on behalf of the tribes, lands “within or without existing reservations.” § 465. Except by authorizing reacquisition of allotted lands in trust, however, Congress made no attempt to undo the dramatic effects of the allotment years on the ownership of former Indian lands. It neither imposed restraints on the ability of Indian allottees to alienate or encumber their fee-patented lands nor impaired the rights of those non-Indians who had acquired title to over two-thirds of the Indian lands allotted