[3] The "Tract of Land of Fifteen Miles square" was the Catawba's sole reservation, having ceded to the British the entirety of the rest of their claim to North and South Carolina in 1760 and 1763.

[13] In 1980, the Catawba sued the state of South Carolina and 76 public and private land-owning entities, as named representatives of a defendant class estimated at 27,000 persons.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari and the United States Solicitor General joined the defendants at oral argument.

Although federal policy may preclude the ordinary applicability of a state statute of limitations for this type of action in the absence of a specific congressional enactment to the contrary, the Catawba Act clearly suffices to reestablish the usual principle regarding the applicability of the state statute of limitations.

"[21] In determining whether federal policy would bar the borrowing of the state statute of limitations—as it had in Oneida II—the dissent would have relied on the Indian law canon of construction.

[22] To this end, the dissent noted: This rule is not simply a method of breaking ties; it reflects an altogether proper reluctance by the judiciary to assume that Congress has chosen further to disadvantage a people whom our Nation long ago reduced to a state of dependency.

Absent “clear and plain” language to the contrary, it must be assumed that Congress did not intend to belie its “avowed solicitude” for the Indians with a “backhanded” abrogation or limitation of their rights.

In Oneida II, the Court rejected a suggestion that Indian common-law rights to tribal lands were somehow swallowed up or pre-empted by the Nonintercourse Act; it made clear that the common law still furnishes an independent basis for legal relief.

But the demands of justice do not cease simply because a wronged people grow less distinctive, or because the rights of innocent third parties must be taken into account in fashioning a remedy.

Today's decision seriously handicaps the Catawbas' effort to obtain even partial redress for the illegal expropriation of lands twice pledged to them, and it does so by attributing to Congress, in effect, an unarticulated intent to trick the Indians a century after the property changed hands.

[26]Finally, the dissent repeated Justice Black's famous Tuscarora rule: "[g]reat nations, like great men, should keep their word.

[28] In other words, the court held that the Catawba's claim would only be time-barred as to defendants who were able to demonstrate adverse possession, without tacking except by inheritance.

[32] Again on remand, the district court denied certification, arguing that each land-owner's defense of adverse possession would require individual factual determinations.

[33] Because Judge Wilson again refused to certify the question for appeal, the Catawba again sought mandamus, which the Fourth Circuit (en banc) denied.

[33] On the mandamus appeal, the Fourth Circuit declined to resolve the issue of whether the statute of limitations was tolled against the non-named defendant class members.

[34] In August 1992, Congress enacted legislation by voice vote to toll the Catawba's statute of limitation for one year, in order to increase the time to negotiate a settlement.

[35] According to Christie: "The inherently complex nature of a claim such as this as well as the hardships caused by all concerned during its protracted existence vividly demonstrate that litigation is an unfortunate vehicle by which to resolve essentially political Indian land-claim issues and that a legislative settlement by Congress such as the one ultimately reached is preferable.