Interest on Indian Claims: Judicial Protection of the FISC
![handle is hein.journals/valur5 and id is 36 raw text is: INTEREST ON INDIAN CLAIMS: JUDICIAL PROTECTION
OF THE FISC
HOWARD M. FRIEDMAN*
INTRODUCTION
The Indian policy of the United States has been a highly political
matter throughout the nation's history. Allocating the limited land,
mineral and water resources of the country between Indian and non-
Indian claimants has rarely been a simple or welcome task for the
federal government.' Decades of battle, both military and political,
have reduced both the quantity and quality of land held by American
Indians. Out of the conflict hundreds of claims for redress, at least in
monetary form, have arisen.
Originally, Congress conducted all negotiations with the Indian
tribes. In 1946 it attempted to avoid the political problems involved in
legislating upon Indian claims2 by creating the Indian Claims Com-
mission.' Originally conceived as an advisory body to the Congress,*
the Commission became the basic component of a system which attempted
to judicialize the awarding of compensation to Indian tribes.5 While
the Commission had broad jurisdiction over claims arising from past
injustices, it was given little substantive guidance in defining corn-
* Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo, former staff attorney,
Indian Claims Commission.
1. The long debate over claims of Alaskan natives demonstrates this fact. See
Wyant, Sharing the Wealth of Alaska, The Oil Rush, THE NEW REPUBLIC, Feb. 14,
1970, at 19.
2. In his veto message to Congress regarding the Turtle Mountain Indians
Jurisdictional Act, which would have referred certain tribal claims to the Court of
Claims, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that
[t]his would require the Court of Claims and Supreme Court to pass upon
questions of governmental policy in dealing with the Indians, and upon the
propriety or impropriety of the Government's action in specific cases. These
are questions of a political nature which, heretofore, Congress has consistently
refused to remit to the courts for review.
S. Doc. No. 179, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. (May 10, 1934).
3. Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946 § 1, 25 U.S.C. § 70 (1964). In 1863
claims growing out of or dependent on any treaty stipulation entered into . . . with the
Indian tribes had been excluded from the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims. Act of
March 3, 1863, ch. 92, § 9, 12 Stat. 767.
4. See S. 1902, 75th Cong., 2d Sess. (1937) ; H.R. 5817, 75th Cong., 2d Sess.
(1937). See generally 81 CONG. REc. 6238-67 (1937).
5. For a discussion of the judicialization of the Commission's fact-finding pro-
cedures, see Vance, The Congressional Mandate and the Indian Claims Commission,
45 N.D.L. REv. 325 (1969).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/valur5&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Interest on Indian Claims: Judicial Protection of the FISC
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most