## Facts

- The Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota was established by treaty and later enlarged, but late-19th-century federal policy shifted toward allotment and sale of reservation lands.
- Under the General Allotment Act of 1887, allotted lands were held in trust for a period and then conveyed in fee, “free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever”; later amendments delayed state jurisdiction until the end of the trust period and allowed early fee patents that removed restrictions, including on taxation.
- The Minnesota-specific Nelson Act of 1889 allotted some Leech Lake lands to individual Indians and directed sales of other reservation lands (including pine lands and agricultural homesteads) to non-Indians, placing significant acreage into fee simple ownership.
- After allotment policy ended, the Leech Lake Band repurchased in fee multiple parcels within the reservation that had previously been allotted to Indians or sold to non-Indians under the Nelson Act.
- Cass County assessed ad valorem property taxes on 21 repurchased fee parcels; the Band paid under protest and sued for a declaration that the county lacked taxing authority.

## Issues

1. Whether state and local governments may impose ad valorem property taxes on reservation parcels that Congress made freely alienable and that were sold into fee ownership, when the parcels are later repurchased in fee by a tribe.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held unanimously that the county could impose ad valorem property taxes on the parcels.
- The Court ruled that when Congress makes reservation land freely alienable, it makes unmistakably clear its intent to permit state and local taxation of that land.
- The Court rejected a distinction between parcels allotted under allotment mechanisms and parcels sold to non-Indians under the Nelson Act’s sale provisions, concluding that all parcels made freely alienable were taxable as fee land.
- The Court reversed the contrary portion of the court of appeals’ judgment and held the parcels taxable unless and until returned to federal trust protection.

## Legal Principles

- States generally may not tax Indian land absent congressional authorization that is “unmistakably clear.”
- Congressional removal of restraints on alienation of reservation land (making it freely alienable in fee) constitutes unmistakably clear authorization for state and local ad valorem taxation.
- Tribal repurchase of previously alienated reservation land in fee does not, by itself, restore tax immunity; tax exemption requires an affirmative restoration to federal trust status or comparable federal protection.

## Conclusion

Reservation parcels that Congress made freely alienable and that entered fee simple ownership remain subject to state and local ad valorem property taxation after a tribe repurchases them in fee, unless the parcels are restored to federal trust protection.


Cass County v. Leech Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, 524 U.S. 103 (1998)