United States v. Powers

An 1868 treaty created the Crow Indian Reservation and let individual Indians take farmland out of common ownership for personal cultivation; the General Allotment Act of 1877 similarly let Indians receive land allotments, initially held in federal trust but conveyable as fee-simple property after 25 years, and many plots were eventually sold to non-Indians. The United States sued on the Tribe's behalf in 1934 to stop individual landowners (defendants) who had succeeded to these allotments from continuing to take water from reservation water sources.