Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 116 Part 4.djvu/418

 116 STAT. 2846 PUBLIC LAW 107-331—DEC. 13, 2002 has maintained a continuous government-to-government relationship with the United States since the earhest years of the Union. (6) In the first half of the 19th century, the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations were forcibly removed from their homelands in the southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi in the Indian Territory that were ceded to them by the United States. From the "Three Forks" area near present day Muskogee, Oklahoma, downstream to the point of confluence with the Canadian River, the Arkansas River flowed entirely within the territory of the Cherokee Nation. From that point of confluence downstream to the Arkansas territorial line, the Arkansas River formed the boundary between the Cherokee Nation on the left side of the thread of the river and the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations on the right. (7) Pursuant to the Act of April 30, 1906 (34 Stat. 137), tribal property not allotted to individuals or otherwise disposed of, including the bed and banks of the Arkansas River, passed to the United States in trust for the use and benefit of the respective Indian Nations in accordance with their respective interests therein. (8) For more than 60 years after Oklahoma statehood, the Bureau of Indian Affairs believed that Oklahoma owned the Riverbed from the Arkansas State line to Three Forks, and therefore took no action to protect the Indian Nations' Riverbed resources such as oil, gas, and Drybed Lands suitable for grazing and agriculture. (9) Third parties with property near the Arkansas River began to occupy the Indian Nations' Drybed Lands—lands that were under water at the time of statehood but that are now dry due to changes in the course of the river. (10) In 1966, the Indian Nations sued the State of Oklahoma to recover their lands. In 1970, the Supreme Court of the United States decided in the case of Choctaw Nation vs. Oklahoma (396 U.S. 620), that the Indian Nations retained title to their respective portions of the Riverbed along the navigable reach of the river. (11) In 1987, the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United States vs. Cherokee Nation (480 U.S. 700) decided that the riverbed lands did not gain an exemption from the Federal Government's navigational servitude and that the Cherokee Nation had no right to compensation for damage to its interest by exercise of the Government's servitude. (12) In 1989, the Indian Nations filed lawsuits against the United States in the United States Court of Federal Claims (Case Nos. 218-89L and 630-89L), seeking damages for the United States' use and mismanagement of tribal trust resources along the Arkansas River. Those actions are still pending. (13) In 1997, the United States filed quiet title litigation against individuals occupying some of the Indian Nations' Drybed Lands. That action, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, was dismissed without prejudice on technical grounds. (14) Much of the Indian Nations' Drybed Lands have been occupied by a large number of adjacent landowners in Oklahoma. Without Federal legislation, further litigation against

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