Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians v. Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan, et al.

In 1855, the United States and Petitioner Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians entered into the Treaty of Detroit, July 31, 1855, 11 Stat. 621, which “withdr[e]w [land] from sale for the benefit of said Indians” and made substantial promises with respect to these “reserved” lands constituting the “aforesaid reservations.” In the years immediately after, Congress acknowledged in statutory text the reservations it had created—describing “the reservation made for the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan by the [1855 Treaty],” Act of June 10, 1872, ch. 424, 17 Stat. 381, and referring to the “lands reserved for Indian purposes under the [1855 Treaty],” Act of March 3, 1875, ch. 188, 18 Stat. 516. Despite that clear text, the Sixth Circuit concluded that Congress never created a reservation for the Band because the Treaty provided for allotments to individual members—which, contrary to this Court’s repeated holdings, the Sixth Circuit deemed inconsistent with creating a reservation. Pet. App. 25a. The Sixth Circuit then compounded its error by holding that there could have been no reservation because the Band failed to demonstrate that the Treaty separately and expressly called for active federal superintendence of the land, in conflict with then-Judge Gorsuch’s opinion for the Tenth Circuit in Hydro Resources, Inc. v. United States EPA, 608 F.3d 1131 (10th Cir. 2010) (en banc), holding no such showing is required for reservations. The question presented is: Whether the 1855 Treaty of Detroit established a federal reservation for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians?