Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER PIERSOL, District Judge. In South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 789, 139 L.Ed.2d 773 (1998), the United States Supreme Court held that the 1894 Act of Congress ratifying the 1892 Agreement with the Yankton Sioux Tribe for the sale of surplus tribal lands terminated the reservation status of those unallotted, ceded lands, resulting in the diminishment of the Yankton Sioux Reservation. The Supreme Court reached this decision with full acknowledgment that the “context of the [1894] Act is not so compelling that, standing alone, it would indicate diminishment[.]” Id. — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. at 802. Rather, the Supreme Court relied upon the surrounding circumstances of the Act to conclude that Congress intended to diminish the reservation. The issue remaining for decision in these cases consolidated following the Supreme Court’s remand is whether the 1894 Act of Congress disestablished the Yankton Sioux Reservation. Although the parties to this litigation have at times used the terms “diminishment” and “disestablishment” interchangeably, the Court in this opinion uses each word to convey a particular meaning. As noted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in its vacated opinion, Yankton Sioux Tribe v. Southern Missouri Waste Management Dist., 99 F.3d 1439, 1443 n. 4 (8th Cir.1996), the term “disestablishment” is “more precisely used to describe the relatively rare elimination of a reservation, see e.g., DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U.S. 425, 95 S.Ct. 1082, 43 L.Ed.2d 300 (1975), as opposed to reduction in the size of a reservation or ‘diminishment.’ See, e.g., Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U.S. 584, 97 S.Ct. 1361, 51 L.Ed.2d 660 (1977).” The Supreme Court carefully stated in Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at-, 118 S.Ct. at 805, that its holding was limited to the narrow question of whether the 1894 Act diminished— that is, reduced the size of — the Yankton Sioux Reservation. As in Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399, 114 S.Ct. 958, 127 L.Ed.2d 252 (1994), the Supreme Court declined to “determine whether Congress disestablished the [Yankton Sioux] reservation altogether[.]” Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 805. The Court now answers the question left open by the Supreme Court and, for the reasons explained thoroughly below, holds that the 1894 Act of Congress ratifying the cession and sale of surplus tribal lands did not disestablish the Yankton Sioux Reservation. The 1894 Act of Congress was not one of those “relatively rare” pieces of legislation that resulted in the elimination of a reservation. Rather, by ratifying the 1892 Agreement with the Yankton Sioux Tribe, Congress, in the words of the Supreme Court, modified or reconceptualized the Yankton Sioux Reservation. See Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at -, -, 118 S.Ct. at 798, 802. The Yankton Sioux Reservation, as diminished by the 1894 Act, encompasses all of the reservation lands that were allotted pursuant to the allotment acts, as well as the lands reserved from sale for agency, school, and other tribal purposes, within the original exterior reservation boundaries established by the 1858 Treaty with the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Federal law defines “Indian country” as “all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and, including rights-of-way running through the reservation.” 18 U.S.C. § 1151. The Yankton Sioux Reservation, as described above, is “Indian country” within the meaning of the federal statute. I. Treaties and the End of Treaty-Making With the Yankton Sioux The Yanktons belong to one of fourteen tribes in the federation of Sioux, and included 32,000 people claiming use rights to approximately 100 million acres of land upon the arrival of non-Indians during the 17th century. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 2 (1995). (PL Ex. 31.) During the 18th century, when members of the federation spread by tribes and bands to occupy the historic Sioux Country, about two thousand Yanktons took up residence over the central portion between the Des Moines and Missouri Rivers, south of the present boundary that divides North and South Dakota. Id. By the early 19th century, the Yankton Sioux exclusively controlled over 13 million acres of land. Id. The United States government formally recognized the Yankton Sioux Tribe as a political entity when the first treaty was negotiated in 1815. H. Hoover, A History of Yankton Tribal Governance at 1 (1995) (PL Ex. 78.) The United States negotiated subsequent treaties with the Yankton Sioux in 1830, 1836, 1837, 1851, and 1858. Id. “After some years of earnest effort on the part of the Interior Department to induce the Yanktons to cede a portion of their territory, finally, in the fall of 1857,” a military captain, with the assistance of Charles T. Picotte, a Yankton half-blood, persuaded the Yanktons to send a delegation to Washington, D.C., to confer with the Government in the early part of the winter of 1857-58. Report Of The Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 423-24 (Oct. 1, 1891). (Gov’t. Ex. 18.) In the resulting April 19, 1858 Treaty, 11 Stat. 743, (PL Ex. 1), the Yankton Sioux Tribe ceded and relinquished to the United States: all the lands now owned, possessed, or claimed by them, where ever situated, except four hundred thousand acres thereof, situated and described as follows, to wit— Beginning at the mouth of the Naw-izi-wa-koo-pah or Chouteau River and extending up the Missouri River thirty miles; thence due north to a point; thence easterly to a point on the said Chouteau River; thence down said river to the place of beginning, so as to include the said quantity of four hundred thousand acres. The Yankton Sioux were to have exclusive occupation of the reservation lands, along with unrestricted use of the red pipestone quarry in the State of Minnesota. A land survey later conducted revealed that 430,495 acres were included in the land mass described by the 1858 Treaty and reserved to the Yankton Sioux. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess., at 5 (1894). (PL Ex. 5.) The land comprising the 1858 Yankton Sioux Reservation is located in the central to southeastern portion of Charles Mix County, South Dakota. In the 1858 Treaty, the Yankton Sioux relinquished and abandoned all claims and complaints growing out of any and all treaties previously made by them or other Indian Tribes, except for their claim to annuity rights under the September 17, 1851 Treaty of Laramie. In return for the cession of land and release of claims, the United States agreed to protect the Yankton Sioux in their “quiet and peaceable possession” of the tract reserved to them. Article 10 of the Treaty provided that “[n]o white person,” with certain exceptions, “shall be permitted to reside or make any settlement upon any part of the tract herein reserved for said Indians, nor shall said Indians alienate, sell, or in any manner dispose of any portion thereof, except to the United States.” The government also agreed to pay the Yankton Sioux or to expend for their benefit, starting the year of their settlement upon the reservation, the total sum of $1.6 million in annuities over a period of fifty years, ending in ,19^8. The government also agreed to expend additional amounts during the first year of the Tribe’s settlement on the reservation for the purchase of stock, agricultural implements, and fencing, and for the construction of houses, schools, and other buildings. In July 1859, United States Agent Alexander Redfield founded the Yankton agency between Chouteau Creek and Fort Randall. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 3 (1995). (PL Ex. 31.) The Yank-tons’ head chief, Struck By The Ree, followed, and within a few months, some 2,000 tribal members pitched tipis close to the agency. Eight band chiefs helped to settle the tribal members on the reservation. Id. The Yanktons entered a “revolution in life style as they accepted confinement on the reservation.” Id. In 1859, surveyors marked the outer boundaries of the reservation and surveyed 166 rectangular lots for family assignment, 87 of which were downstream and 79 of which were upstream from the agency. Id. at 4. By 1860, there were 2,053 Yanktons on the reservation, segregated into seven bands. Id. A “Chief Farmer” managed the 360.73-acre agency compound at Greenwood, on the Missouri River, and “supervised agricultural development and acculturation across the reservation.” Id. at 5. In the years that followed the 1858 Treaty, the federal government did not provide the Yanktons all of the financial assistance promised. Settled close to the Missouri River or in the breaks of the Missouri Hills, the Yank-tons broke prairie sod, opened farms, and built log homes. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 424 (Oct. 1, 1891). (Gov’t. Ex. 18.) Drought set in and burned up the crops, followed by devastating floods. As a result, the Yanktons believed that the Great Spirit was offended at them for cultivating the soil. Id. “Their work oxen and cows were soon in the soup, farm tools and wagons were soon thrown aside to rot, them clothing was cast off, and the whole nation went off on a buffalo hunt.” Id. Upon their return many months later, the Yankton Sioux “found the Santees, their old-time allies, had opened up a horrid frontier war against the whites, and that emissaries from the hostile bands were waiting to counsel with them to engage the Yanktons also in hostilities against the Government.” Id. In 1864, when the Santee Sioux were raiding and killing the settlers of Minnesota, General Sully, at Fort Randall, enlisted in the service of the United States as scouts fifty-one Yankton Indians. “They took the field at once against their own kindred in defense of the white inhabitants of Dakota and Nebraska, and drove back the hostile Santees.” Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 48 (1878). (Gov’t. Ex. 18.) The Yankton scouts were honorably discharged at the end of the war, but without any pay, id., a matter that would surface as a major point of contention with the Yanktons during discussions about the sale of their surplus lands in 1892. In the early 1880’s, the Yankton Sioux claimed that, unlike other Indian tribes, “the blood of no white person stains their hands.” Report Of The Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 61 (1881). (Gov’t. Ex. 18.) The Yanktons viewed themselves as “[ajlways at peace and friendly even to taking up arms against their own relations,” and believed that, as a result, they “should receive greater consideration and benefit from [the white] people and government; that on the contrary they receive less, while those who fought the government imbued then-hands in white man’s blood, and obtain all they ask.” Id. In 1869, Moses K. Armstrong conducted a second survey of family lots on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, marking 177 lots of 80 acres each. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 5 (1995). (PL Ex. 31.) In 1874, J.W. Beaman surveyed additional lots of 40 acres each, to make one available for each family. While several missionaries visited the reservation, Presbyterian John P. Williamson arrived as the first resident missionary in 1869, and Episcopal Father Joseph Cook settled in Greenwood in 1870. Id. at 4. As mission and federal facilities were built, “agency personnel gradually replaced ‘recalcitrant’ band chiefs with others more amenable to federal objectives[.]” Id. The growing population of non-Indian farmers, businessmen, and railroad men in the Upper Midwest pressured federal officials to open the surplus lands of Indian reservations for settlement. “The decade of the 1860’s was marked by an increasing volume of general Indian legislation [by Congress], coincident with a decline in the use of Indian treaties as an instrument of national policy.... The formative era of Indian relations ended with the Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871, providing for the termination of treaty making with Indian tribes.” F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 126-27 (1982) (footnote omitted) (hereinafter Cohen). Codified at 25 U.S.C. § 71, the statute provided: No Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty; but no obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe prior to March 3,1871, shall be hereby invalidated or impaired. At least one commentator suggests that the “end of treaty making assumes an exaggerated historic importance unless understood in light of the comprehensive nature of federal involvement in Indian affairs.” Cohen at 127 (footnote omitted). In the commentator’s view, [t]he primary reason for the termination of treaty making in 1871 was political, the result of the House of Representatives’ desire to have more control over Indian affairs and over the lands being ceded by the tribes. The federal-Indian relationship continued much as it had before 1871. Negotiations with tribes and land cessions resulted in “agreements” rather than treaties, and were ratified by both houses of Congress. Congress continued to establish reservations, make appropriations, and enact statutes affecting Indians. Like treaties, agreements and statutes are the “supreme law of the land,” creating rights and liabilities that are virtually identical to those established by treaties. Cohen at 127 (footnotes omitted). The prohibition on treaty-making “was a domestic political decision with little legal impact on the continuing relationship between the United States and Indian tribes[J” and caused the federal government to look to other procedural methods in dealing with the Indian tribes. Id. at 128. After 1871, a trend developed toward more comprehensive legislation as the government gradually moved away from the “tribe-by-tribe approach of the treaty making years. The result was a steady increase in statutory power vested in Indian service officials and a steady narrowing of the rights of individual Indians and tribes.” Cohen at 128. The process of allotment of tribal lands in sever-alty and the assimilation of the Indians into white culture was deemed to be important for Indians and non-Indians alike. Id. Years of debate on allotment proposals followed. Id. at 131. On February 8, 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act, 24 Stat. 388, which mandated the allotment of land to individual tribal members on the reservations and negated the previous family assignments of land parcels. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 5-6 (1995). (PI. Ex. 31.) The Dawes Act did not expressly mandate the elimination of reservations. Senator Dawes, sponsor of the bill, had favored a voluntary program of allotments, but eventually supported compulsory allotment because he became convinced, like the humanitarian reformers, that destruction of the tribal system was inevitable if Indians were to participate fully in the American system. Cohen at 131. Allotments of land to individuals were thought to be of primary importance because the Indian concept of tribally-owned land was fundamentally different from the whites’ concepts of civilization and individual land ownership, and the whites’ view was considered to be superior. Id. White reformers also thought that a government patent would create greater security for the Indian allottee than would possession of land under tribal law or custom and that settling the Indians in a permanent place would end their nomadic behavior. Indians who favored allotment placed faith in the patent in fee as protection against white encroachment and removal by the government. Cohen at 132. The Dawes Act provided: That in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use, either by treaty stipulation or by virtue of an act of Congress or executive order setting apart the same for their use, the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon[.] 24 Stat. 388. Each head of a family was to receive one quarter section of land (160 acres), each single person over eighteen years of age and each orphan child under eighteen years of age was to receive one-eighth of a section (80 acres), and each single person under eighteen years of age or born prior to the date of the President’s order directing allotment of the land was to receive one-sixteenth of a section (40 acres). Id. The Dawes Act farther provided in section 5 that, upon approval of the allotments by the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary would issue a patent in the name of each allottee, to be held in trust by the United States for twenty-five years for the sole use and benefit of the Indian allottee, and in the case of the allottee’s death, for the sole use and benefit of the allottee’s heirs. Section 5 provided that, at the end of the trust period, the United States would convey the allotment in fee, discharged of said trust and free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever ... And if any conveyance shall be made of the lands set apart and allotted as herein provided, or any contract made touching the same, before the expiration of the time above mentioned, such conveyance or contract shall be absolutely null and void[.] 24 Stat. at 389. Congress gave the President authority to extend the trust period in his discretion. Id. Section 5 of the Dawes Act, significantly for this litigation, further provided: That at any time after lands have been allotted to all the Indians of any tribe as herein provided, or sooner if in the opinion of the President it shall be for the best interests of said tribe, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of the Interior to negotiate with such Indian tribe for the purchase and release by said tribe, in conformity with the treaty or statute under which such reservation is held, of such -portions of its reservation not allotted as such tribe shall, from time to time, consent to sell, on such terms and conditions as shall be considered just and equitable between the United States and said tribe of Indians, which purchase shall not be complete until ratified by Congress[.] 24 Stat. at 389-90 (emphasis added). The Dawes Act stated in section 6 that, upon completion of the allotments and the issuance of patents to the allottees, the allot-tees would be subject to the civil and criminal laws of the State or Territory in which they resided. Moreover, each allottee “who has voluntarily taken up, within said limits, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States.” Id. at 390. Some of the Yanktons resisted the new allotment policy, and four companies of troops were sent from Fort Randall to quell the disturbances and restore order. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 6 (1995). (PL Ex. 31.) Allotting Agent J. G. Hatchett arrived in 1889 to parcel out the individual allotments on the Yankton Sioux Reservation. Id. Protests by the Indians hampered his work, id., but the allotments were completed that year and in 1890, Hatchett equalized the allotments, utilizing approximately one-half of the reservation. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 428 (Oct. 1, 1891). (Gov’t. Ex. 18.) Hatchett continued to refine the list of allotments, and in 1892 reported the assignment of 1,700 allotments on approximately 262,000 acres of the Yankton Sioux Reservation. H. Hoover, A Yankton Sioux Tribal Land History at 6 (1995). (PI. Ex. 31.) Hatchett’s report negated all previous land assignments, and tribal members were required to scatter on their new family farms located across the reservation. Id. at 6 & n. 15. Of the 480,495 acres of land comprising the 1858 Yankton Sioux Reservation, 167,325 acres were allotted and patented to the Indians under the Dawes Act. By early 1894, allotments under the Act of February 28, 1891, 26 Stat. 594, had been made in the field, but those allotments had not been examined and approved. The federal government estimated that some 95,000 additional acres had been allotted after passage of the 1891 Act, leaving surplus lands of approximately 168,000 acres, which were ceded by the Yankton Sioux for $600,000, or $3.62 per aere. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess., at 5 (1894); (PL Ex. 5.) Congress having officially ended treaty-making with the tribes in 1871, the last large-scale sale of land to the United States by the Yankton Sioux Tribe occurred as a result of an 1892 Agreement, after an 1884 government attempt to obtain the sale of the Yank-tons’ surplus lands failed. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess., at 12 (1894); (PI. Ex. 5.) In 1892, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior appointed three members to serve on the Yankton Indian Commission to negotiate the sale of the surplus land owned by the Yankton Sioux. (PL Ex. 28.) The three commissioners were John J. Cole, J. C. Adams, and Dr. W. L. Brown; however, Dr. Brown resigned from the Commission before an agreement was reached, and his replacement, L. W. French, was never qualified to act as a Commissioner and took no part in the negotiations. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 7-8, 34 (1894); (PL Ex. 5.) These discussions did not take place with tribal leaders in Washington, D.C., as had the negotiations resulting in the 1858 Treaty. The Commissioners were sent to the Yankton Sioux Reservation “to negotiate ... for the cession of their surplus lands,” and “[i]f [the Yankton Sioux] are unwilling to cede all the surplus land you will endeavor to obtain the relinquishment of such part thereof as they may be willing to part with.” Instructions to the Yankton Indian Commission (July 27,1892), reprinted in Yankton Sioux Tribe U.S. Supreme Court Joint Appendix Vol. I at 98-99. Although the 1894 Congress and courts have been careful to distinguish between the 1858 “Treaty” and the 1892 “Agreement,” see, e.g., S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 1 (1894) (Pl. Ex. 5.); Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 793, the Commissioners sent to the reservation and the Yankton Sioux repeatedly mentioned during the 1892 discussions concerning the sale of surplus lands that their work would result in a “treaty” that would be ratified by Congress. Before the Commissioners left the Yankton Sioux Reservation for Washington to present the 1892 Agreement to Congress, a copy of the Agreement was left in the Yanktons’ treaty book, which was turned over to Rev. Williamson for safekeeping. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 48-96, 97 (1894). (PL Ex. 5.) Moreover, then Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith, in the first sentence of his 1894 cover letter submitting the Agreement and the reports of the work underlying it to Congress, stated that he had the honor “to submit herewith an agreement made by the commission appointed to treat with the Yankton tribe of Dakota or Sioux Indians[.]” Id. Similarly, the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs referred to the Agreement as a “treaty” in his report to the Secretary of the Interior, id. at 5, and those chiefs and head men of the Yankton Sioux Tribe who wrote to Congress urging ratification of the Agreement referred to it as the “treaty of December 31, 1892.” S. Rep. No. 196, Committee on Indian Affairs, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 2 (1894). (PL Ex. 7.) These references to treaty-making by the primary participants are significant, because the references establish that the Tribe, which likely was not aware that Congress technically had ended treaty-making by statute in 1871, nonetheless continued to view its interactions with the federal government within the historic context of the political relationship that had existed between the Tribe and the federal government beginning with the Treaty of 1815. The references also confirm the commentator’s view that the “federal-Indian relationship continued much as it had before 1871[,]” Cohen at 127, and that the only major difference between a “treaty” and an “agreement” was that both Houses of Congress had to ratify an “agreement,” while only the Senate ratified a treaty. II. The Sale of Surplus Lands and the 1892 Agreement The crucial question presented is whether the 53rd Congress, legislating during the allotment era, intended by the Act of 1894, ratifying the 1892 Agreement with the Yank-ton Sioux, to disestablish the Yankton Sioux Reservation completely. This becomes a highly complicated question in light of the Supreme Court’s Yankton Sioux Tribe decision holding that the Yankton Sioux Reservation is diminished to the extent of the surplus lands sold through the 1894 Act. Diminishment ordinarily suggests a shrinking of the land mass reserved to the tribe, with a clear demarcation between the land removed from reservation status, and the land retained in reservation status. See, e.g., Rosebud, 430 U.S. at 606-615, 97 S.Ct. at 1373-1377 (holding that congressional acts diminished boundaries of Rosebud Reservation by removing from reservation land situated in four counties of South Dakota). Such a clear demarcation is not present here, where the Yankton Sioux allotments purposely were interspersed over the entire 1858 reservation to help ensure that the Indians would live closely with the whites who settled on the intermingled ceded lands and thereby assimilate into white culture. The Supreme Court recognized that diminishment ordinarily affects the placement of reservation boundaries, see Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. -, -, -, 118 S.Ct. at 798, 799, 800, 139 L.Ed.2d 773, but nowhere in its opinion did the Supreme Court explain how the Yankton Sioux Reservation boundaries changed as a result of the diminishment. The court stopped short of holding the Yankton Sioux Reservation terminated or disestablished as it could have done if it thought DeCoteau was controlling, id. — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. at 805, and instead signaled at points in its opinion that perhaps the reservation is not disestablished. Id. — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. at 801, 805. The Supreme Court spoke of Congress intending by the 1894 Act “to modify the reservation,” id. — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. at 798, or to work “a reconception of the reservation[.]” Id. — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. at 802. The Supreme Court did not elaborate upon how such a modified or reconceived reservation should be envisioned. If the original exterior boundaries remain, as it appears they do from the Supreme Court’s opinion, then the Supreme Court has effectively created within those boundaries an “ ‘impractical pattern of checkerboard jurisdiction,’ ” a result which the Supreme Court in the past has disfavored as contrary to the approach preferred by Congress and codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1151, to avoid jurisdictional confusion. See Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, 425 U.S. 463, 478, 96 S.Ct. 1634, 1643-44, 48 L.Ed.2d 96 (1976) (quoted case omitted); Seymour v. Superintendent of Washington State Penitentiary, 368 U.S. 351, 358, 82 S.Ct. 424, 428-29, 7 L.Ed.2d 346 (1962). Because the Supreme Court has not explained how the diminishment affected reservation boundaries, this Court “cannot assume that Congress would intend to change the reservation to an area without, defined boundaries and, in addition, create a confusing checkerboard pattern of jurisdiction.” United States v. Long Elk, 565 F.2d 1032, 1039 (8th Cir.1977). The Tenth Circuit confronted an identical boundary problem following the Supreme Court’s diminishment decision in Hagen. See Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah and Ouray Reservation v. Utah, 114 F.3d 1513 (10th Cir.1997), cert. denied sub nom. Duchesne County v. Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah and Ouray Reservation, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 1034, 140 L.Ed.2d 101 (1998). The Hagen decision, which affirmed a judgment of the Utah Supreme Court, directly conflicted with a prior en banc decision of the Tenth Circuit that the Uintah Valley Reservation was not diminished or disestablished. After Hagen, the Tenth Circuit recalled its mandate and modified its previous decision only to the extent necessary to reconcile the opinion with Hagen. Ute Indian Tribe, 114 F.3d at 1528. The Tenth Circuit held, consistently with Ha- gen, that Acts of Congress between 1902 and 1905 diminished the reservation to the extent of the unallotted lands that were opened to non-Indian settlement, but that the Acts did not entirely disestablish the reservation. Id. The court concluded that the original exteri- or reservation boundaries remained intact and that all lands originally allotted to tribal members remained within the limits of the reservation and constituted Indian country under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a), even though a substantial portion of those allotted lands had passed into fee status after 1905. Id. 114 F.3d at 1529-30. When given the opportunity to grant a petition for certiorari and review the Tenth Circuit’s decision, the Supreme Court declined and denied the petition for a writ of certiorari. The disestablishment question now before this Court closely mirrors the issue before the Tenth Circuit in Ute Indian Tribe, and the Court draws some guidance from that opinion. But each agreement with an Indian tribe is different and must be evaluated in light of all the circumstances attendant to its making. Hagen, 510 U.S. at 410-13, 114 S.Ct. at 965-66. Thus, the Court begins its analysis from the familiar legal premise that Congress created the Yankton Sioux Reservation in the 1858 Treaty, and only Congress can eliminate it by explicitly indicating its intent to do so. See Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U.S. 463, 470, 104 S.Ct. 1161, 1166, 79 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984). The Supreme Court “does not lightly conclude that an Indian reservation has been terminated,” DeCoteau, 420 U.S. at 443, 95 S.Ct. at 1092, and this Court likewise will not lightly reach such a determination. Once Congress has established a reservation, all tracts included within it are a part of the reservation until separated from it by Congress. Id., 420 U.S. at 443, 95 S.Ct. at 1092-93. The 1894 Act of Congress which opened the Yankton Sioux Reservation to allow non-Indians to purchase land and settle there and which, according to the Supreme Court, diminished the size of the reservation only to the extent of the ceded lands, is not inconsistent with the preservation of the 1858 Treaty boundaries. See Solem, 465 U.S. at 470, 104 S.Ct. at 1166; DeCoteau, 420 U.S. at 444, 95 S.Ct. at 1093. Ambiguities must be resolved in favor of the Yankton Sioux, see Hagen, 510 U.S. at 411, 114 S.Ct. at 965, and the Supreme Court “requires that the ‘congressional determination to terminate ... be expressed on the face of the Act or be clear from the surrounding circumstances and legislative history.’ ” DeCoteau, 420 U.S. at 444, 95 S.Ct. at 1093. Thus, to follow the disestablishment inquiry as defined in DeCoteau, the Court must consider the language of the 1894 ratification statute and the 1892 Agreement it incorporated, as well as the legislative history of the Act, and the surrounding historical circumstances. The Court believes it is helpful to begin with the historical circumstances surrounding the making of the 1892 Agreement as documented in the reports of the Yankton Indian Commission. S. Exec. Doc. No. 27, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 48-97 (1894); (PI. Ex. 5.) (hereafter “Negotiations”.) These detailed reports provide clear insight into the mindset of the Commissioners and the Yankton Sioux as they negotiated for the sale of the surplus lands. These reports were included in the legislative history of the 1894 Act ratifying the 1892 Agreement, and the Senate and House Reports forwarding the Act from the Committees on Indian Affairs to the floor called special attention to the report of the Yankton Sioux Commission and all of their proceedings. S. Rep. No. 196, Committee on Indian Affairs, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 1 (1894) (PI. Ex. 7); H. Rep. No. 570, Committee on Indian Affairs, 53rd Cong., 2d Sess. at 1 (1894). (PI. Ex. 8.) A. The Reports of the Yankton Indian Commission The Commissioners held ten councils which were attended by the Indian Committee of 24 named to represent the Yankton Sioux Tribe, the ten moderators, the chiefs, the head men, and varying numbers of members of the Tribe. The first two of the ten councils occurred on October 8th and 24th of 1892, and the remaining eight councils occurred between December 2nd and 17th of 1892. Very little, if any, discussion during the councils was directed to hammering out the terms of the twenty Articles that ultimately became the 1892 Agreement. Negotiations at 48-97. Tribal members generally spoke in favor of or in opposition to the sale of the surplus lands, expressing explicitly their perceived view of themselves as ignorant and inferior to the wiser, educated Commissioners. Id. at 52. The Indians’ speeches were laced with suspicion and distrust of the United States because of previous unhonored treaty terms, and with paramount concern for the price the United States would pay for the surplus lands. The Committee of 24 developed a list of twelve propositions, or grievances, that the Tribe wanted addressed in the agreement to sell the surplus lands. Id. at 52, 57. The Commissioners eventually agreed to incorporate as many of the propositions as their instructions from Washington would allow. Id. at 60. Along the way, however, the Commissioners attempted to convince the Indians that they could not resist the tide of change, that the President and the Secretary of the Interior were their friends, that the United States had fulfilled all terms of the 1858 Treaty, that the United States would deal fairly with the Indians, and that sale of the surplus lands was in the Tribe’s best interest. Id. at 65-69. What is clear throughout the Commissioners’ reports of their councils with the Tribe is that their mission was to obtain the sale of the surplus lands, and no more. This Court, the Eighth Circuit, and the Supreme Court each acknowledged in the previous stage of this litigation that the parties, in reaching the 1892 Agreement, did not discuss the future boundaries of the reservation or the relinquishment of the entire reservation by the Tribe, but memorialized only the consent of the Tribe to sell the surplus lands remaining after the allotment process was completed. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 890 F.Supp. at 883-84; Yankton Sioux Tribe, 99 F.3d at 1453; Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 795. If the Commissioners had intended to terminate the reservation and communicated that to the Indians, that would have made their mission even more difficult. Comments made by the Commissioners during the councils with the Yankton Sioux support the conclusion that the Commissioners and the Tribe did not perceive their work as causing a complete disestablishment of the reservation. In his earliest comments during the first council with the Tribe, Commissioner Adams stated, ‘We understand that you each received an allotment of land on which to make a home.... we also understand that you own, outside of your allotments, a large quantity of land in common. It is this land that you own in common that we were appointed by the Great Father to talk to you about.” Negotiations at 48. Although these comments immediately bring to mind the Dawes Act and the policies behind it, what Commissioner Adams had to say to the Tribe just a few moments later is striking. He said: “It might be, after you sold your lands, you could have this reservation organized as a separate county. If this could be done — I do not say it can — you could govern your own people in your own way, so long as you obeyed the laws of the State. I do not say this can be done, but see no good reason why it might not be done.” Id. Commissioner Adams apparently held the view that the allotment policy and tribal self-government could co-exist, and he set the tone for the negotiations by conveying such a view in his very first address to the Tribe. Likewise, during the first council, Commissioner Cole told the Indians that the “Great White Father ... does not want you to sell your homes that he has allotted to you. He wants you to keep your homes forever. He only wants you to sell your surplus lands for which you have no use.” Id. at 49. Cole assured the Indians, “[y]ou not only have a home as a tribe, but every man, woman, and child among you each now has a home which no one can take away from you and the Great White Father wants you to always keep these homes and live on them in peace and comfort like white men, and be citizens and have plenty.” Id. Cole also remarked, “The Great Father and his Great Secretary [of the Interior], Mr. Noble, think you have acted wisely in selecting your homes in severalty.... They have sent us here to buy these surplus lands for homes for white men who will settle among you; who will live peaceably and neighborly with you; who will cultivate these surplus lands and make your allotted lands much more valuable.” Id. at 50. In response to the statements of Adams and Cole, Henry Strieker replied, “if you will help us we hope we will make a treaty that will be beneficial to us as a tribe.” Id. At the second council, the tribal members asked to see the form contract held by the Commissioners, which was produced. Remarkably, a question arose whether the tribal members would be permitted to make comments about the provisions contained in the form agreement, and this apparently generated extensive discussion. The Commissioners reported to Congress that “[i]t was finally agreed that [the agreement] should be translated to the council and such comments as may be made by any of the committee of 24, could not, and should not be considered final.” Id. at 51. The contract was then read article by article through oral translation into the Dakota language and, at the Tribe’s request, the contract was also translated in a written form for use and consideration by the Committee of 24. Id. With that, the council ended. In the series of eight councils that occurred during the sixteen-day period from December 2 to December 17, 1892, more comments were made suggesting that the Commissioners and the tribal members thought the intent of the “Great White Father” was to open the reservation for settlement rather than to disestablish it. Robert Clarkson, a member of the Tribe, said, “White men see our surplus lands every day traveling through it. They have a lawyer sent to Congress to open this reservation and surplus land.” Id. at 61. Commissioner Brown acknowledged that the 1858 Treaty “set aside for your people a reservation with certain boundaries[,]” which was supposed to contain 400,000 acres. Id. at 66. He admonished the Tribe to consider that, when the reservation was surveyed, it actually contained 430,495 acres, “more than the Government agreed to let you have.” Id. He assured the Indians that “schoolhouses will be put up all over the agency[.]” Id. at 67. To convince the Indians that the strong federal government was looking out for the interests of the poorer Tribe, Commissioner Brown gave as an example two Indians, one strong and well-looking, and one half-starved, asking the Commissioners to divide a piece of beef between them. He said “it would be natural and right to give the one who was sick more than the other ... and if we make this treaty we want to give you the biggest half.” Id. at 67. Commissioner Cole named as the “principal object of the treaty” to make both the allotted and the surplus lands valuable, id. at 68, and explained potential differences in income to tribal members, to be derived primarily from land rent, “after the surplus lands have been occupied by white people.” Id. at 69. A dominant theme of the Commissioners was that the government wanted the Indians to live close to the white settlers so that the Indians could emulate the non-Indians, see id. at 71-72, but the reason given was not the government’s desire to eliminate the reservation. Rather, the Commissioners reminded the Indians that, with the loss of wild game and a declining ability to roam and hunt as in the past, the Indians needed to adapt to the changed conditions around them, and to learn to obtain their food, clothing, and income like white men. Id. at 71-72. Commissioner Adams instructed the Indians as to how they might rent the uncultivated portions of their allotments to white men to generate cash income, using as an example his personal experience at the Sissetons’ reservation. Id. at 72-73. The Commissioners had already told the Yanktons that the $2.50 per acre that the United States paid the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe for the surplus lands on the Lake Traverse Reservation in 1891, the year before, was the highest price Congress had ever paid for surplus Indian lands. Id. at 68. Despite the Sisse-tons’ sale of all of their surplus lands, Commissioner Adams viewed the Lake Traverse Reservation as still in existence: Here is the line of the Sisseton Reservation in my county. I live here, about 15 miles from the line of the Sisseton. Right here lives a friend of mine by the name of Vick, just outside the reservation line. Just inside of the line of the reservation lives an Indian friend of mine by the name of Chunek. He has land which has plenty of grass upon it. Vick asked Chunek to let him cut grass on his land. He agreed to and Vick was to pay 50 cents per ton for all he cut. This man cut 150 tons of hay and paid Chunek $75 for it. Chunek did not do anything but he in the grass and see others work and got $75. It was just as if Chunek had gone out into the middle of the road and picked it up. Now, my friends, what made the grass on Chunek’s farm worth money? Because his tribe had sold their surplus land and he had become a citizen of the United States and could rent his land. This he could not do until the surplus land was sold to the Government. If this Indian can do this why cannot you? Id. at 72. Considering these remarks, and this Commissioner’s earlier comments that it might be possible to “have this reservation organized as a separate county[,]” and “you could govern your own people in your own way, so long as you obeyed the laws of the State[,]” the Yankton Sioux reasonably could have concluded that, as a result of the sale of their surplus lands, the “Great Father” would, in time, make them citizens of both the State of South Dakota and the United States, and yet permit them to continue to govern themselves as a Tribe on the allotted lands. Despite all of the efforts of the Commissioners, during the council on December 10, 1892, some tribal members reported the Indians had stayed up night and day debating the matter, but had decided not to sell their surplus lands. Id. at 73. Other tribal members disagreed, saying the Tribe was willing to sell, but the only disagreement was price. Commissioner Cole became adamant: Now, I want you to understand that you are absolutely dependent upon the Great Father today for a living. Let the Government send out instructions to your agent to cease to issue these rations, let the Government instruct your agent to cease to issue your clothes. Let the Government instruct him to cease to issue your supplies, let him take away the money to run your schools with, and I want to know what you would do. Everything you are wearing and eating is gratuity. Take all this away and throw this people wholly upon their own responsibility to take care of themselves, and what would be the result? Not one-fourth of your people could live through the winter, and when the grass grows again it would be nourished by the dust of all the balance of your noble tribe. ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ [The Great Father] did not send this commission until every one of you, down to the smallest baby, has a home of their own on this reservation. Id. at 74-75 (emphasis added). From this speech and the fact that the Yanktons had lived on family allotments on the reservation for thirty-three years, the Yanktons could, and most probably did, draw the conclusion that their individually allotted lands remained in reservation status, but that the continuation of their annuities and all other forms of federal financial assistance depended upon their agreement to sell the surplus lands. Yankton Agent Foster then spoke in favor of the Agreement, but advised the Tribe not to settle on the price. Id. at 75. Felix Brunot called for a vote, which caused confusion and wrangling among the factions of the Tribe favoring and opposing the sale. Id. at 76. Commissioner Cole refused to recognize any vote because less than a majority of the adult male members of the Tribe were present. Id. At the next council, the Commissioners asked the Committee of 24 to designate six individuals, representing the factions in the Tribe, to meet with the Commission to draft a treaty. Id. at 76-77. This proposal also met with disagreement because tribal members believed the Commission refused to recognize the stated decision of the Committee of 24, representing the Tribe, not to sell the surplus lands. Id. at 78. Cole defended his proposal of a subcommittee as necessary to work out the small details. The friends of the treaty appointed three members to the proposed subcommittee, but the opposition understandably did not present any members for such service. Id. at 78, 81. In the last council, on December 17, 1892, Commissioner Brown resigned to eliminate any possibility that he was the cause of the Tribe’s refusal to sell the surplus lands, as he had heard rumors that he was to blame. Id. at 79. Commissioner Cole then eloquently addressed the Tribe: This reservation alone proclaims the old time and the old conditions. But even here the means of your former mode of life have vanquished. The tide of civilization is as resistless as the tide of the ocean, and you have no choice but to accept it and live according to its methods or be destroyed by it. To accept it requires the sale of these surplus lands and the opening of this reservation to white settlement. Id. at 81 (emphasis added). The council adjourned, and approximately two weeks later, on December 31, 1892, the Commissioners announced their completion of an Agreement for the sale of the surplus lands, after their consultation with the chiefs and head men and the white missionaries considered to be friends of the Tribe. Id. at 83-84. At no point in the Commissioners’ reports is there any mention, by a Commissioner or by a Yankton Sioux, of any anticipated change in the reservation boundaries or of a disestablishment or termination of the Yank-ton Sioux Reservation. At no point in the Commissioners’ reports is there any mention of a transfer of the Yanktons’ tribal sovereignty to the United States or the State of South Dakota. On January 3, 1893, missionary John Williamson sent a letter to Commissioner Cole, stating that he thought the terms were the most liberal the Indians would get, that he had no doubt the provisions would be faithfully carried out, and “further there is no cause for apprehension that this agreement will in any way interfere with the treaty of 1858.” Id. at 84. Joseph Cook, the Episcopal missionary, concurred with Williamson that the Agreement was advantageous for the Tribe. Id. A draft of the Agreement was sent to Secretary of the Interior Noble in January 1893, and his minor suggested changes were made. Id. There is no indication in the Commissioners’ reports that the Yanktons reached a consensus to support the Agreement. To the contrary, the Commissioners’ reports in early 1893 describe vehement opposition to the Agreement and hardships the Commissioners faced in obtaining signatures to the Agreement by the majority of the adult male members of the Tribe. Id. at 85-97. Councils were held to read the Agreement to the tribal members, and the Commissioners waited day after day for tribal members to come to them and sign the Agreement. The Commissioners traveled across the reservation looking for elderly and infirm signatories, and even crossed into Nebraska to take the signatures of Yankton soldiers who were not present on the Yankton Sioux Reservation during the negotiations. Id. at 92-93. By March of 1893, the Commissioners obtained a sufficient number of signatures — 255 of the 458 members eligible to sign — and the Commission departed for Washington. Id. at 21, 97. Two federal investigators were sent separately to the Yankton Sioux Reservation in 1893 to investigate allegations of fraud in the procurement of signatures on the Agreement. Indian Inspector John W. Cadman reported in November 1893 that he had uncovered only one incident of possible undue influence, but that he did not believe such had occurred in that case. He also reported that some tribal members who had signed the Agreement wished to change their minds, while others wished to sign the Agreement for the first time. Id. at 35. Special Agent Cooper also found no evidence of coercion by the Commissioners in reaching the Agreement. Id. at 95. The Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated September 16, 1893 (PI. Ex. 10), written before Congress ratified the 1892 Agreement, stated the Indians had “not signified their assent that such reservation might be embraced within the Territory of Dakota or State of South Dakota[,]” and further, Notwithstanding that all the Indians have accepted allotments and land patents have been issued to many of them for their lands, yet their relationship with local State authorities has not changed. The reservation has been within an organized county for many years, yet the county authorities decline to recognize the Indians or any of the residents of the reserve as entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship. The constitution of the State of South Dakota expressly disclaims any right or title to any lands owned or held by an Indian or Indian tribe and are exempt from taxation, and this is held to disclaim any jurisdiction over the tribe, either civil or criminal, of the residents within an Indian country. * * * * * * It is clear, then, that the United States exercises sole and exclusive jurisdiction over the reservation except in so far as it may see fit to grant the State the right to exercise its jurisdiction. B. The Language of the 1892 Agreement and the Legislative History of the 1894 Ratifying Act The entire 1892 Agreement and its preamble were incorporated into the 1894 ratifying statute. (PI. Ex. 2, hereafter “Act”.) Congress stated in the Act that it “accepted, ratified, and confirmed” the 1892 Agreement and: [t]hat the lands by said agreement ceded to the United States shall, upon proclamation by the President, be opened to settlement, and shall be subject to disposal only under the homestead and town-site laws of the United States, excepting the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections in each Congressional township, which shall be reserved for common school purposes and be subject to the laws of the State of South Dakota[.] Act at 6 (emphasis added). Congress’ statement that the ceded lands shall be “opened to settlement” is ambiguous in that it does not make clear whether the Yankton Sioux Reservation is disestablished or whether the Reservation is diminished only to the extent of the ceded lands. Where there is an ambiguity in a statute, a preamble can be utilized to help discern the intent of Congress. See Jurgensen v. Fairfax County, 745 F.2d 868, 885 (4th Cir.1984). The preamble to the 1892 Agreement cited the 1892 appropriations act authorizing the Secretary of the Interior “to negotiate with any Indians for the surrender of portions of their respective reservations, any agreement thus negotiated being subject to subsequent ratification by Congress[.]” Act at 1 (emphasis added). The preamble also recited that the Yankton Sioux Tribe “is willing to dispose of a portion of the land set apart and reserved to said tribe, by the first article of the treaty of April (19th) nineteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty eight (1858), between said tribe and the United States, and situated in the State of South Dakota[.]” Act at 1 (emphasis added). The emphasized portions of the preamble clearly indicate congressional intent to accept the will of the Yankton Sioux Tribe to cede only a portion of the reservation established by the 1858 Treaty. Similarly, in Solem, 465 U.S. at 472-74, 104 S.Ct. at 1167-68, the Supreme Court concluded that the phrase “sell and dispose” indicated congressional intent to maintain existing reservation boundaries of the Cheyenne Reservation in South Dakota. Thus, the language of the 1894 Act of Congress contradicts any suggestion that the Yankton Sioux Reservation is disestablished. Congress added the provision about reserving the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections for common school purposes. The Supreme Court interpreted similar language in the Rosebud Acts as intended by Congress to conform them to the enabling legislation which admitted the State of South Dakota into the Union, and reasoned that Congress thereby intended to diminish the Rosebud Reservation. 25 Stat. 679 (1889); Rosebud Sioux Tribe, 430 U.S. at 599-601, 97 S.Ct. at 1369-70. In Yankton Sioux Tribe, the Supreme Court recognized the State’s position, relying on Rosebud, that the school sections clause indicated a view that Congress meant to extinguish the reservation status of the ceded lands, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 801, but, referring to Article VIII, not Article VII, the Supreme Court concluded that “... a somewhat contradictory provision counsels against finding the reservation terminated.” The Supreme Court cited its earlier conclusion in DeCoteau that the school sections clause implied nothing about the presence or absence of state civil and criminal jurisdiction over the remainder of the ceded lands, and the Supreme Court did not consider at all the effect of the school sections clause on the allotted, unceded lands. In DeCoteau, where the Lake Traverse Reservation was held to be disestablished, the Supreme Court dismissed the school sections clause in a footnote as irrelevant to the dispute before the Court. DeCoteau, 420 U.S. at 444 n. 33, 95 S.Ct. at 1093 n. 33. The Supreme Court observed that the clause was not part of the agreement sent to Congress for ratification, there was no indication Congress added the clause with the intent to qualify the terms of the cession agreement, and it was Congress’ usual practice to include the clause in “opening public lands to settlement[.]” Id. This Court concludes that the school sections clause is equally irrelevant here, as it was in DeCoteau, but even if the clause is deemed relevant, a probable interpretation of it is that Congress wanted to be sure common schools would be available for all residents, Indian and non-Indian, in the opened, assimilated Yankton Sioux Reservation. If Congress had intended to disestablish the Yankton Sioux Reservation, the common school sections would have been subject to state law in any event and such language would have been wholly unnecessary. Nothing in the explicit language of the 1892 Agreement supports disestablishment of the Reservation. The first two Articles, which were the focus of the previous Yank-ton Sioux eases, ceded to the United States the surplus lands for a sum certain and diminished the size of the Reservation. Yankton Sioux Tribe, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 798, 139 L.Ed.2d 773. Articles III, IV, and VI pertained to the method of payment to the Tribe of the principal and interest received upon the sale of the surplus lands, and those Articles do not shed any light on the disestablishment issue. Many of the remaining Articles of the 1892 Agreement also do not further the disestablishment analysis. They provided for gifts of $20 gold pieces to males of the Tribe, Article VII; permitted leasing of uncultivated allotted land, Article IX; permitted religious societies to continue working among the Indians, Article X; prohibited payment of the land purchase price to the Indians to settle claims prior to the Agreement, Article XII; fixed the status of mixed bloods, Article XIII; prohibited Congress from alienating the allotments from the Indians before sale of the surplus lands to settlers, Article XIV; settled the claims of the Yankton scouts and the Tribe’s claim to the Pipestone Reservation, Articles XV and XVI; provided for placement of a copy of the Agreement in the Yanktons’ “Agreement Book,” Article XIX; and bound both parties upon ratification by Congress, Article XX. Consequently, these Articles will not be discussed in any detail. 1. Article V Article V provided for the set aside and use of the interest on the land purchase price to continue funding services for the Yank-tons’ most helpless members, for schools and educational purposes, and “for courts of justice and other local institutions for the benefit of said tribe[.]” The evidentiary record before the Court establishes that, years before the 1892 Agreement, Congress authorized the creation of an Indian police force and a Court of Indian Offenses on the Yank-ton Sioux Reservation, and that such a police force and a Court of Indian Offenses operated to govern tribal affairs at the time of the ratification. H. Hoover, Yankton Tribal Police and.Court of Indian Offenses, 1859-194-3 (1998). (Gov’t.Ex. 16.) Article Vs provision for continued funding of these and “other local institutions” signals congressional intent consistent with the continuing reservation status of the allotted lands and an intent to preserve tribal self-government within the 1858 boundaries on the allotted lands. Section 2 of Article V solidified the understanding of the Yanktons and the Congress, consistent with the Dawes Act, that the Yanktons’ land patents would be held in trust for twenty-five years, and at the end of that trust period, the Yanktons would receive from the United States a complete title to their allotted lands, and would then assume all the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Such language indicates a congressional intent that there would be an ongoing relationship between the Yanktons and the federal government during the twenty-five year assimilation period. Because the Yanktons were not to receive patents in fee immediately, the Yanktons continued to live on land that was essentially retained in reservation status but apportioned to them individually. Such an interpretation is supported by evidence in the record showing that three U.S. Presidents — Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover — extended by Executive Order the trust period on certain of the allotted lands, and in each Executive Order, the President explicitly referred to “the trust period on the allotments of Indians on the Yankton Sioux Reservation [.]” (Gov’t. Exs. 10-12.) Acts of Congress subsequent to the 1894 Act, such as the Burke Act of 1906, facilitated the alienation of a substantial number of Indian allotments to non-Indians by 1913, through such means as allowing the Secretary of the Interior to grant patents in fee to certain “competent” Indians prior to the expiration of the trust period and through sales of heirship lands. (PI. Exs. 21-22; PI. Ex. 2, 1892 Agreement, Article XI.) These sales of allotments were not always the result of arms-length negotiation. The allegations of a 1921 complaint brought by the United States on its own behal