A view of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico. Photo from Brian0918 / Wikipedia
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reopened a land claim filed by Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico. The tribe claims aboriginal title to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, an 89,216-acre area created by Congress in 2000. A significant portion of the preserve came from the federal government's acquisition of a parcel known as the Baca grant. In a September 2013 decision, Judge Robert C. Brack acknowledged the tribe's ancestral connection to the land but said the lawsuit was filed too late. He concluded that the case should have been filed with the Indian Claims Commission no later than 1951. On appeal, the 10th Circuit reversed. The court said the federal government failed to show whether Congress ever extinguished aboriginal title to the Baca grant. "This appeal is not about whether the Jemez Pueblo holds aboriginal title," Judge Stephanie Seymour wrote for the majority. "On remand, the Jemez Pueblo will have to prove that it had, and still has, aboriginal title to the land at issue in the case." "This appeal concerns whether the 1860 Baca grant extinguished the Jemez Pueblo’s alleged aboriginal title to the lands which are the subject of this action. We hold it did not," Seymour wrote. The Baca grant itself was authorized by act of Congress in 1860. The 10th Circuit, though, said the law did not extinguish any aboriginal title to the land. "The government cites us to no language in the 1860 Act to show the unambiguous intent of Congress to extinguish existing Indian title," Seymour wrote. "Absent clear and unambiguous intent by Congress to allow extinguishment of the aboriginal right of occupancy of the Jemez Pueblo, therefore, the grant of land to the Baca heirs was valid to convey the fee but the Baca heirs took the title subject to the Jemez Pueblo’s aboriginal title," the decision stated. The ruling is a victory for the tribe and its members, who have continued to use Valles Caldera for ceremonies, hunting and gathering long after the 1860 Baca grant. The federal government's acquisition of the land in 2000 interfered with some of those activities, prompting the filing of the lawsuit. "The Valles Caldera contains many important sacred areas and religious sites of the traditional ancestral Jemez culture and the area is greatly valued by the Jemez Pueblo as a spiritual sanctuary," the court stated. "The ceremonial sites and gathering areas are still actively used by the Jemez Pueblo today and are crucial to the continuing survival of traditional Jemez Pueblo culture and religion." "Whether the Jemez Pueblo can establish that it exercised its right of aboriginal occupancy to these lands in 1860 and thereafter is a fact question to be established on remand, where it will have the opportunity to present evidence to support its claim," the decision read. "To do so, it must show ‘actual, exclusive, and continuous use and occupancy ‘for a long time’ of the claimed area.'" The 10th Circuit remanded the case to a federal judge for further proceedings. The Department of Justice, however, could ask for a rehearing or could even take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. Turtle Talk has posted documents from the case, Jemez Pueblo v. US. Get the Story:
Appeals court: Jemez Pueblo may have claim to Valles Caldera (The Santa Fe New Mexican 6/27) 10th Circuit Decision:
Jemez Pueblo v. US (June 26, 2015)
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