American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Congress exercised its plenary power over the Omaha and Winnebago tribes in 1910 and 1916 by passing legislation which authorized Thurston County, Nebraska leaders to assess a real estate tax against trust allotments on the Omaha and Winnebago reservations. Congress' tax direction to Thurston County violated a fundamental principle governing relations between the Indian tribes and the United States: that Indian country, which included trust land, was immune from state taxes. A result of this infringement of inherent tribal sovereignty was the eventual loss of Omaha and Winnebago lands through sale. Those who managed to save their lands paid land taxes to the country from 1910 until 1971. An ironic corollary to this unfortunate episode was that tax-paying tribal members did not receive state services because local leaders considered Indians to be wards of the federal government and therefore a federal responsibility. The local taxation of Indian allotments in Thurston County also demonstrated that the United States was unwilling to accept its trust responsibility to individual Indians or to protect tribal integrity. Even though the Omaha Treaty of 1854 specified a formula for the future allotment of Omaha lands, Congress authorized the first actual land allotments on either the Omaha or Winnebago reservations to select Winnebagos in 1871. These eighty-acre allotments were called "Learning allotments," named after the agent who issued them. Congress controlled these individual tracts and prevented local taxation through the instrument of a restricted fee instead of a trust patent. With a restricted fee, the Indian owned title to the land, but the United States imposed certain restrictions to protect the land against alienation. This differs from a trust patent where the United States owned the land but held it in trust for the individual Indian. Because these initial allotments made on the Winnebago reservation were exempt from future land taxes, the Learning allotments were not important in the tax issue. Instead, individual trust allotments carried the eventual burden of local land taxes because the 1910 and 1916 laws specified that only trust lands would be taxed.