Judge Hanford Rules on Native Rights to Personal Autonomy
A landmark federal court decision affirms that Indigenous citizens holding land in severalty are not subject to the same liquor restrictions as those on reservations.
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A very important decision on the rights of Indians has been rendered by Judge Hanford to the effect that under the law Indians holding land in severalty and not living on a reservation are to be treated as citizens of the United States so far as the liquor question is concerned. The United States law against selling liquor to Indians applies only to agency Indians, who are treated as wards of the government, and not to the Puyallup and other tribes who hold their land under the allotment-in-severalty act of February 8, 1887. This ruling was made in the case of the United States against James D. Campbell, indicted for selling liquor to two Puyallup Indians. Campbell's counsel moved the dismissal of the case on the ground that the Indian severalty bill made all Indians who receive allotment of lands in severalty citizens of the United States, entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of all other citizens. Judge Hanford stated that while the policy of the government had formerly been very rigid in dealing with whisky selling to Indians, by the acts of 1887 and 1888, the government has gone to the other extreme, and an Indian who has taken land has a right to establish a home and invite his friends there and treat them like white men and eat and drink what he pleases. Under the law there is no more restriction upon the personal rights of one of these Indians than upon those of any other citizen.
“An Indian who has taken land has a right to establish a home and invite his friends there and treat them like white men and eat and drink what he pleases.”
This 1891 decision reflects the era's contentious legal experiments in assimilation and the erosion of tribal sovereignty through individual land ownership. It highlights how federal courts often arbitrarily redefined 'citizenship' to dismantle treaty rights, a struggle for Indigenous self-determination that remains central in Pacific Northwest legal history.
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