Aboriginal title in California

Aboriginal title in California refers to the aboriginal title land rights of the indigenous peoples of California. The state is unique in that no Native American tribe in California is the counterparty to a ratified federal treaty. Therefore, all the Indian reservations in the state were created by federal statute or executive order.

California has experienced less possessory land claim litigation than other states. This is primarily the result of the Land Claims Act of 1851 (following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) that required all claims deriving from the Spanish and Mexican governments to be filed within two years. Three U.S. Supreme Court decisions and one Ninth Circuit ruling have held that the Land Claims Act applied to aboriginal title, and thus extinguished all aboriginal title in the state (as no tribes filed claims under the Act). Two Deputy Attorneys General of California have advocated this view.^[1]

^ Flushman & Barbieri, 1986, at 428 ("The dealings of the United States with the California Indians has extinguished aboriginal title in California."); id. at 458 ("The inherent deficiency of with any future aboriginal title claim in California is that California Indians, unlike the Indians of the eastern United States, are able to point only to the acts of the United States as the reason they have been dispossessed.").

[1] Flushman & Barbieri, 1986, at 428 ("The dealings of the United States with the California Indians has extinguished aboriginal title in California."); id. at 458 ("The inherent deficiency of with any future aboriginal title claim in California is that California Indians, unlike the Indians of the eastern United States, are able to point only to the acts of the United States as the reason they have been dispossessed.").

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