Appellants filed their petition in the Court of Claims under the Act of April 11, 1916, c. 63, 39 Stat. 47, printed in the margin so far as material, conferring on the Court of Claims jurisdiction to hear and determine all claims of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Bands of Indians against the United States. The Court of Claims on its findings of fact and conclusions of law gave judgment dismissing the petition. 58 Ct. Cl. 302. This court denied an application for certiorari October 10, 1927 (275 U.S. 528, 48 S.C.t. 20, 72 L. Ed. -). The present appeal was taken under Act of Congress approved March 4, 1927, c. 522, 44 Stat. part 3, p. 1847. It specifically granted to appellants one year from date within which to appeal, and was intended we think to confer a right of appeal as distinguished from the right to petition for certiorari within three months of the judgment, conferred by sections 3 and 8 of the Jurisdictional Act of February 13, 1925 (28 USCA §§ 288, 350).
Appellants ask review by this court of four items of their claim, all of which were denied by the court below. All involve the question, among others, whether under the special act conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims the authority of that court was limited to adjudicating the rights of appellants arising under treaties and statutes of the United States, in accordance with accepted principles of law and equity, or whether it could go behind those treaties and statutes and allow recovery of amounts not authorized to be paid by them, on grounds of inadequacy of consideration and mistake.
The four items of claim now presented differ in some respects from the claims set up in the petition. The facts now relied on, so far as disclosed by the findings, to which the consideration of this court is limited, may be summarized as follows:
Appellants' Claim for Additional Compensation for Lands Ceded Under the Treaty of 1858.
This claim is, in substance, founded upon an asserted difference between the value of certain lands of petitioners and the amount allowed and paid for them under treaties of the United States with the Indians and subsequent action taken under them. The Court of Claims found that the petitioners were two bands of the Sioux Indians, having their habitat prior to July 3, 1851, along the upper Minnesota river. On that date they negotiated a treaty with the United States, later modified by the Senate of the United States, and as modified ratified by the Indians and the United States government in September, 1852. 10 Stat. 952, 958. The treaty ceded to the United States all the lands of petitioners in the territory of Minnesota and Iowa.
By article III as originally drafted, reservations for the petitioners were set apart along the Minnesota river and following the negotiation of the treaty the petitioners, together with two other bands, the Wahpakoota and Medawakanton Indians, were removed to those reservations. These provisions for reservations for the four bands were stricken out of the treaty as ratified, and a new provision substituted that the Indians should be paid 10 cents an acre for these lands, payment to be in lieu of the reservations as originally provided for in article 3 of the treaty as negotiated, the sum so paid to be added to the trust fund for the Indians provided for in other sections of the treaty. The sum so paid and allotted to the trust fund amounted to $112,000. The President of the United States was authorized to set apart another reservation for these bands of Indians outside of the ceded territory, but no other reservation was in fact so set apart under the provisions of this treaty.
By Treaty of June, 1858, 12 Stat. 1031, 1037, it was stipulated that those portions of the reservations lying south of the Minnesota river should constitute reservations for the four bands with provisions for allotment, and that the disposition to be made of the portions of the reservations on the north side of the river should be left to the United States Senate for decision. Senate Resolution of June 27, 1860, 12 Stat. 1042, provided that the Indians should be allowed 30 cents an acre for the lands lying on the north side of the river. These lands consisted of 469,000 acres, for which the Indians were paid $170,880, payment being provided for by the Act of March 2, 1861, c. 85, 12 Stat. 221, 237.