David Robinson v. Sally Jewell , 790 F.3d 910 ( 2015 )


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  •                  FOR PUBLICATION
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    DAVID LAUGHING HORSE ROBINSON,           No. 12-17151
    an individual and Chairman,
    Kawaiisu Tribe of Tejon;                    D.C. No.
    KAWAIISU TRIBE OF TEJON,                 1:09-cv-01977-
    Plaintiffs-Appellants,        BAM
    v.
    OPINION
    SALLY JEWELL, Secretary, U.S.
    Department of the Interior;
    TEJON MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, LLC;
    COUNTY OF KERN; TEJON RANCH
    CORPORATION; TEJON RANCHCORP,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Eastern District of California
    Barbara McAuliffe, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
    Argued and Submitted
    November 20, 2014—San Francisco, California
    Filed June 22, 2015
    Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, and Stephen
    Reinhardt and Morgan Christen, Circuit Judges.
    Opinion by Chief Judge Thomas
    2                      ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    SUMMARY*
    Tribal Land Rights
    The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the
    claims of the Kawaiisu, a non-federally recognized Native
    American group, and its elected chairperson, David Laughing
    Horse Robinson, asserting title to the Tejon Ranch, one of the
    largest continuous expanses of private land in California.
    The panel held that the district court properly determined
    that the Tribe had no ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch
    and that no reservation was established. Specifically, the
    panel held that the district court correctly concluded that the
    Tribe’s failure to present a claim to the Board of
    Commissioners created by the California Land Claims Act of
    1851 extinguished its title; that the Treaty with the Utah did
    not convey land rights to the signatory tribes or recognize
    aboriginal title; and that Treaty D was never ratified and
    conveyed no rights. The panel rejected the Tribe’s
    complaints of alleged forgery and deception in obtaining
    patents for the four Mexican land grants comprising Tejon
    Ranch because all of the alleged acts occurred prior to the
    submission of the claims to the Board of Commissioners, and
    the Tribe could not challenge the validity of land patents after
    more than a century of time had passed.
    The panel held that the claims against Kern County were
    subsumed into the Tejon Ranch ownership determination.
    The panel further held that the Tribe’s claims originally
    *
    This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
    been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                      3
    asserted against the Secretary of the United States
    Department of the Interior, and Robinson’s individual claims,
    were waived for failure to assert them on appeal. The panel
    declined to consider the Tribe’s new arguments on appeal.
    COUNSEL
    Jeffrey M. Schwartz (argued), Schwartz Law, P.C., San
    Clemente, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
    Tamara N. Rountree (argued), Barbara M. R. Marvin, and
    William Lazarus, Attorneys, United States Department of
    Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division,
    Appellate Section, Washington, D. C., Defendant-Appellee
    Secretary of Interior.
    Eric D. Miller (argued), Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle,
    Washington; Jennifer A. MacLean, Benjamin S. Sharp, and
    Elisabeth C. Frost, Perkins Coie LLP, Washington D.C., for
    Defendants-Appellees Tejon Mountain Village, LLC, Tejon
    Ranch Corporation, and Tejon Ranchcorp.
    Charles F. Collins (argued) and Theresa A. Goldner, Kern
    County Administrative Center, Bakersfield, California, for
    Defendant-Appellee Kern County.
    4                   ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    OPINION
    THOMAS, Chief Judge:
    In this appeal, the Kawaiisu, a non-federally recognized
    Native American group indigenous to the Tehachapi
    Mountains and the Southern Sierra Nevada (“the Tribe” or
    “the Kawaiisu”), and its elected chairperson, David Laughing
    Horse Robinson, appeal the dismissal of their claims asserting
    title to the Tejon Ranch, one of the largest continuous
    expanses of private land in California. We review de novo a
    district court’s order granting a motion to dismiss for failure
    to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
    12(b)(6), Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins., Co.,
    
    519 F.3d 1025
    , 1030 (9th Cir. 2008), and we affirm the
    judgment of the district court.
    I
    As with most land disputes of this type, historical
    perspective is important in resolving the claims. During first
    the Spanish and then the Mexican occupations of what is now
    California, those governments encouraged settlement by
    issuing large land grants in the territory. At the conclusion of
    the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States
    acquired California from Mexico through the Treaty of
    Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty promised to honor Spanish
    and Mexican land grants. Treaty of Peace, Friendship,
    Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America
    and the Mexican Republic art. VIII–IX, Feb. 2, 1848, 9 Stat.
    922 (“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo”).
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                         5
    The discovery of gold in California just eight days
    prior to the signing of the treaty, and the subsequent,
    unprecedented influx of settlers to the territory, placed a great
    deal of pressure on land claims. To resolve disputes over the
    validity of private title to land, Congress passed the Act of
    March 3, 1851, ch. 41, 9 Stat. 631 (“Act of 1851”),
    commonly known as the California Land Claims Act of 1851.
    The Act created a Board of Commissioners (“Commission”)
    to evaluate claims and required that anyone claiming title
    derived from a Mexican or Spanish grant present a claim to
    the Commission within two years. 
    Id. § 8.
    Any land not
    claimed within that period, or for which a claim was rejected,
    would be returned to “the public domain of the United
    States.” 
    Id. § 13.
    No Indian groups, including the predecessors to the
    Kawaiisu, registered claims with the Commission during the
    two-year period. In addition, the United States Senate
    refused to ratify any of the eighteen treaties negotiated with
    California tribes between 1851 and 1852, a decision that was
    sealed until 1905. William C. Sturtevant, HANDBOOK OF
    NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS: CALIFORNIA 702–03 (1978).
    Following the cessation of hostilities with Mexico and the
    signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States
    entered into and ratified a treaty with an array of western
    Native American leaders collectively referred to as “the
    Utah.” The Treaty with the Utah, signed in 1849 in Santa Fe,
    New Mexico, provided for an end to hostilities between the
    Utah tribes and the United States and stipulated that the Utahs
    accept and submit to the jurisdiction of the United States.
    Further, it stated:
    6                   ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    [The United States] shall, at its earliest
    convenience, designate, settle, and adjust their
    territorial boundaries . . . . [a]nd the said
    Utahs, further, bind themselves not to depart
    from their accustomed homes or localities
    unless specially permitted . . . and so soon as
    their boundaries are distinctly defined, the
    said Utahs are further bound to confine
    themselves to said limits, under pueblos, or to
    settle in such other manner as will enable
    them most successfully to cultivate the soil,
    and pursue such other industrial pursuits as
    will best promote their happiness and
    prosperity: and they now deliberately and
    considerately, pledge their existence as a
    distinct tribe, to abstain, for all time to come,
    from all depredations; to cease the roving and
    rambling habits which have hitherto marked
    them as a people; to confine themselves
    strictly to the limits which may be assigned
    them; and to support themselves by their own
    industry, aided and directed as it may be by
    the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the
    American people.
    Treaty with the Utah, Dec. 30, 1849, art. VII, 9 Stat. 984.
    The Kawaiisu allege that several of its leaders, including its
    head chief at the time, Acaguate Nochi, were among the
    signatories to the treaty.
    The Kawaiisu identify themselves as “an Indian Tribe that
    has resided in and around Kern County, California since time
    immemorial.” Plaintiff Robinson traces his lineage through
    multiple previous head chiefs of the Kawaiisu back to
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                               7
    Acaguate Nochi. The Kawaiisu are not currently, and have
    never been, included on the official list of federally
    recognized tribes maintained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
    at the Department of the Interior.
    According to the Tribe’s complaint, the Kawaiisu first
    appeared in the historical record in the 1776 diary of Father
    Francisco Garces. Father Garces’ map of the following year
    notes the Tribe’s presence according to a number of its
    historic names.       While the name Kawaiisu derives
    linguistically from a tribe to the north in San Joaquin Valley,
    the Tribe identifies as “one of the ancient Great Basin
    Shoshone Paiute Tribes whose pre-European territory
    extended from Utah to the Pacific Ocean.” The Kawaiisu’s
    complaint lists an array of ethnographic accounts
    documenting its unique tribal identity, including the Bureau
    of American Ethnology’s 1907 Handbook of American
    Indians North of Mexico.
    In 1851—two years after the signing of the Treaty with
    the Utah and just a few months after the California Land
    Claims Act of 1851 went into effect—the United States
    executed a treaty with “various tribes of Indians in the State
    of California” in which the tribes agreed to cede large
    portions of land and the federal government promised to set
    aside reservations “for the sole use and occupancy” of the
    tribes and supply the Indians with goods and services,
    including schools. This treaty, known as “Treaty D,” was
    submitted to Congress but never ratified by the Senate.1
    1
    In 1927, the California legislature passed a statute authorizing the
    California Attorney General to bring suit on behalf of the tribes who were
    party to Treaty D and seventeen other unratified treaties. On May 18,
    1928, Congress passed The Indians of California Act, 25 U.S.C. § 651,
    8                       ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    In the absence of any ratified treaties with the Indians of
    California, the establishment of reservations in the state could
    only result from an act of Congress or from the President
    acting under delegation from Congress. Three acts of
    Congress—taking place in 1853, 1855, and 1864—are
    relevant here. The Act of 1853 authorized the President to
    create five “military reservations” no more than 25,000 acres
    in size in the state of California or the territories of Utah and
    New Mexico. Act of March 3, 1853, ch. 104, 10 Stat. 226,
    238. In 1855, Congress amended the Act of 1853 to provide
    funding and authorization for two additional reservations.
    Act of March 3, 1855, 10 Stat. 699.
    During the period prior to 1864, the President appears to
    have only officially created three reservations in California.
    Mattz v. Arnett, 
    412 U.S. 481
    , 489 (1973) (“At the time of the
    passage of the 1864 Act there were, apparently, three
    reservations in California: the Klamath River, the Mendocino,
    and the Smith River.”). The Tribe alleges that the
    Tejon/Sebastian Reservation was created pursuant to the Act
    of 1853, pointing to a letter from President Franklin Pierce to
    the Secretary of the Interior, Robert McClelland, and a
    subsequent letter from the Secretary to the Superintendent of
    Indian Affairs for California, Edward F. Beale, from that
    same year.
    which granted jurisdiction to the Court of Claims to hear these cases. Earl
    Warren, representing “all those Indians of the various tribes, bands and
    rancherias who were living in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and
    their descendants living in the State,” Indians of California by Webb v.
    United States, 
    98 Ct. Cl. 583
    , 585 (Ct. Cl. 1942), negotiated a
    $5,024,842.34 judgment in favor of the Indians. See Round Valley Indian
    Tribes v. United States, 
    97 Fed. Cl. 500
    , 504 (Fed. Cl. 2011).
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                        9
    After quoting the paragraph of the 1853 Act authorizing
    creation of five reservations, President Pierce’s letter states,
    “In the exercise of discretion vested in me by said act of
    Congress, I have examined and hereby approve the plan
    therein proposed for the protection of the Indians in
    California, and request that you will take the necessary steps
    for carrying the same into effect.” Secretary McClelland’s
    letter to Superintendent Beale repeats the language from the
    Act of 1853 and then states that:
    The President of the United States has
    examined and approved the plan provided for
    in said act, and directs that you be charged
    with the duty of carrying it into effect. For
    this purpose you will repair to California
    without delay, and by the most expeditious
    route.    The selections of the military
    reservations are to be made by you in
    conjunction with the military commandant in
    California, or such officer as may be detailed
    for that purpose, in which case they must be
    sanctioned by the commandant. It is likewise
    the President’s desire that, in all other matters
    connected with the execution of this “plan,”
    you will, as far as may be practicable, act in
    concert with the commanding officer of that
    military department.
    However, no Presidential proclamation or executive order
    was ever issued regarding the Tejon or Sebastian Reservation.
    In 1864, Congress significantly reorganized management
    of reservations in California. The Act of 1864 consolidated
    California as one Indian superintendency, empowered the
    10                  ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    President to create no more than four reservations, and
    required that lands not retained as reservations under the Act
    be offered for public sale. Act of Apr. 8, 1864, ch. 40, 48, 13
    Stat. 39.      The President eventually established four
    reservations by executive order. The Tejon/Sebastian
    Reservation was not among them.
    The land at issue in the case—the 270,000 acres
    comprising Tejon Ranch and the 49,000 of those acres
    referred to as the Tejon or Sebastian Reservation—is made up
    of portions of four different Mexican land grants: Rancho El
    Tejon, Rancho los Alamos y Agua Caliente, Rancho Castac,
    and Rancho La Liebre. The various holders of those four
    grants submitted claims pursuant to the Act of 1851, all of
    which were confirmed by the Commission, which issued
    patents for the claims between 1863 and 1875. The rights to
    all four of these grants were acquired by Edward F. Beale
    between 1855 and 1866. Defendants Tejon Mountain
    Village, LLC, Tejon Ranch Corporation, and Tejon
    Ranchcorp (collectively, “Tejon Ranch Defendants”)
    ultimately acquired title through transactions traceable to the
    patents. The Tejon Ranch Defendants propose a 3,450-home
    development named Tejon Mountain Village on the Tejon
    Ranch.
    The Tribe filed this action asserting title under a variety
    of theories ultimately asserting four claims against the
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                              11
    Secretary of Interior,2 two against the Tejon Ranch
    Defendants,3 and one against Kern County, California.4
    After dismissing two complaints with leave to amend, the
    district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice.
    II
    The Tribe has waived appeal of its claims against the
    Secretary by failing to “present a specific, cogent argument
    for our consideration.” Greenwood v. FAA, 
    28 F.3d 971
    , 977
    (9th Cir. 1994); see also Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A)
    (requiring that an appellant’s brief must contain an argument
    section which includes their “contentions and the reasons for
    them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record
    on which the appellant relies”).
    2
    The Tribe’s claims against the Secretary are (1) deprivation of property
    without due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment by wrongfully
    omitting the Tribe from the list of federally recognized tribes and failing
    to correct that omission; (2) breach of fiduciary duty by not intervening on
    the Tribe’s behalf to stop the proposed development of Tejon Mountain
    Village; (3) denial of equal protection in violation of the Fifth Amendment
    by extending benefits to other tribal groups while failing to recognize the
    Tribe; and (4) non-statutory review of the Secretary’s failure to recognize
    the Tribe, based on federal recognition by virtue of the Act of Congress
    ratifying the 1849 Treaty with the Utah.
    3
    The Tribe’s claims against the Tejon parties include unlawful
    possession of Tejon Ranch, trespass, violation of NAGPRA, and violation
    of the Non-Intercourse Act.
    4
    The Tribe’s sole claim against Kern County is for equitable
    enforcement of treaty—essentially forcing the County to revoke its
    approval of permits for the development of Tejon Mountain Village.
    12                     ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    On appeal, the Tribe asserts a new theory of estoppel
    against the Secretary and suggests that the United States
    violated its trust responsibility by failing to present or
    preserve the Tribe’s claims before the Commission. Neither
    theory was presented to the district court. We decline to
    consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal. Raich
    v. Gonzales, 
    500 F.3d 850
    , 868 (9th Cir. 2007).
    III
    A
    The Tribe claims ownership to the Tejon Ranch as against
    the Tejon Ranch Defendants on its alleged receipt of a
    Spanish land grant, its rights under the 1849 Treaty with the
    Utah, and its negotiation of Treaty D with the federal
    government. However, the district court correctly concluded
    that the Tribe’s failure to present a claim to the Commission
    pursuant to the California Land Claims Act of 1851
    extinguished its title, that the Treaty with the Utah did not
    convey land rights to the signatory tribes or recognize
    aboriginal title, and that Treaty D was never ratified and
    conveyed no rights.
    The Tribe asserts that “[i]n 1777, the Spanish government
    granted the Kawaiisu land in what would become the State of
    California.” The only support for this assertion is its alleged
    presence on Diseno Maps from that year created by Father
    Francisco Garces.5 Even assuming that the Kawaiisu
    5
    We note, however, that in its Second Amended Complaint, and in the
    Tribe’s opposition to the Tejon Ranch Defendants’ motion to dismiss the
    Third Amended Complaint, the Tribe argued that its land rights explicitly
    do not derive from any Spanish or Mexican grant.
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                       13
    possessed such a grant, the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe
    Hidalgo alone were insufficient to preserve it. The Land
    Claims Act of 1851 required that “each and every person
    claiming lands in California by virtue of any right or title
    derived from the Spanish or Mexican government, shall
    present the same to the said commissioners . . . .” 9 Stat. 631,
    § 8. Presentation to the Commission was the only avenue
    allowed by the Act for preservation of claims and the
    issuance of a patent. Section 13 of the Act provides that “all
    lands the claims to which shall not have been presented to the
    said commissioners within two years after the date of this act,
    shall be deemed, held and considered as part of the public
    domain of the United States.” 
    Id. § 13.
    The Tribe concedes
    that it did not present any claims to the Commission within
    the statutory time frame.
    The Tribe claims land rights were bestowed by the
    subsequent Treaty with the Utah, or, alternatively, argues that
    its participation in Treaty D constituted substantial
    compliance with the Act of 1851. Neither argument is
    persuasive.
    The Treaty with the Utah did not grant the Tribe title to
    Tejon Ranch, nor did it recognize aboriginal title of any of the
    signatory tribes, including the Kawaiisu. Aboriginal title
    “means mere possession not specifically recognized as
    ownership by Congress.” Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United
    States, 
    348 U.S. 272
    , 279 (1955). Absent such recognition by
    Congress, aboriginal right of occupancy can be terminated by
    the sovereign at any time “without any legally enforceable
    obligation to compensate the Indians.” 
    Id. Recognition of
    aboriginal title requires a clear statement from Congress
    unequivocally granting legal rights. See Uintah Ute Indians
    of Utah v. United States, 
    28 Fed. Cl. 768
    , 786 (Fed. Cl. 1993)
    14                  ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    (“Recognition of Indian title may take various forms, but such
    recognition must manifest a definite intention to accord legal
    rights.”). “The Congress must affirmatively intend to grant
    the right to occupy and use the land permanently. By
    ‘recognition,’ the courts have meant that Congress intended
    to acknowledge . . . to Indian tribes rights in land which were
    in addition to the Indians’ traditional use and occupancy
    rights exercised only with the permission of the sovereign.”
    Sac & Fox Tribe v. United States, 
    315 F.2d 896
    , 900 (Ct. Cl.
    1963) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
    The question of whether the Treaty with the Utah created
    any enforceable property rights has been addressed by the
    Court of Federal Claims, which determined in 1993 that the
    1849 treaty did not recognize Indian title. Uintah Ute
    
    Indians, 28 Fed. Cl. at 786
    . As that court observed, “Article
    VII of the 1849 treaty does not recognize title because the
    boundaries of aboriginal lands were to be settled in the future.
    By its terms the treaty does not designate, settle, adjust,
    define, or assign limits or boundaries to plaintiff; it leaves
    such matters to the future. Consequently, the treaty cannot be
    said to recognize Indian title.”
    The district court correctly adopted the reasoning of
    Uintah Ute Indians. By referring to “limits which may be
    assigned [the Utahs]” that they would be “bound to confine
    themself to,” the Treaty’s language indicates that any rights
    to the land the Indians occupied at the time of its execution
    were not recognized by the United States government. Treaty
    with the Utah, art. VII. We cannot assume that Congress
    would have intended through its ratification of the Treaty
    with the Utah to grant title to the vast, then-indeterminate
    expanses of land occupied by the various signatory tribes.
    The Treaty’s language points to its aims of promoting
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                              15
    peaceful relations and encouraging the Indians to adopt a
    more geographically constrained agrarian mode of living.
    Id.6
    Treaty D, executed in 1851 by the Kawaiisu and the
    United States, was never ratified by the Senate and thus
    carries no legal effect. See U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. The
    treaty itself contained language to that effect, stating that it
    would “be binding on the contracting parties when ratified
    and confirmed by the President and Senate of the United
    States of America.” The Kawaiisu argue that through its
    participation in Treaty D, the Tribe “substantially complied”
    with the Act of 1851 and thus perfected title tracing to its
    alleged Spanish land grant or the Treaty with the Utah. This
    argument also fails. The Act of 1851 provides for no
    alternative to presenting one’s claims to the Commission.
    Treaty D granted no land rights, nor did it create any other
    enforceable rights, as it was never ratified and is thus a legal
    nullity.7 It was also insufficient for the purposes of the Act of
    6
    The Tribe also contends that “the district court’s interpretation of the
    Treaty with the Utahs was fatally flawed because the court failed to
    consider how the Kawaiisu interpreted the Treaty, as the Supreme Court
    requires.” However, “[t]he interpretation of a treaty is a question of law
    and not a matter of fact.” United States ex rel Chunie v. Ringrose,
    
    788 F.2d 638
    , 643 n.2 (9th Cir. 1986); see also Sioux Tribe v. United
    States, 
    205 Ct. Cl. 148
    , 158 (Ct. Cl. 1974) (“We have repeatedly held that
    the interpretation of an Indian treaty is a question of law, not a matter of
    fact.”). As in Chunie, the issue of whether the Treaty with the Utah
    granted any enforceable rights is relatively settled as a matter of law.
    7
    The district court and Tejon Defendants point out that the Kawaiisu
    were partially compensated for the failure of the United States to ratify
    Treaty D. A 1942 settlement negotiated by Earl Warren, then-Attorney
    General of California, obtained over five million dollars in compensation
    16                      ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    1851’s requirement that any parties claiming title to land in
    California under Spanish or Mexican grants present their
    claims to the Commission.
    Subsequent case law established that the Act of 1851 fully
    extinguished any existing aboriginal title or unregistered land
    grants. In 1901, the Supreme Court held in Barker v. Harvey,
    
    181 U.S. 481
    , that even perfect title was subject to the
    presentation requirement of the Act of 1851, as were claims
    by Mission Indians derived from Mexican land grants. 
    Id. at 491
    (“If these Indians had any claims founded on the action
    of the Mexican government they abandoned them by not
    presenting them to the commission for consideration.”). The
    Court further suggested that the Act itself extinguished
    aboriginal title: “Surely a claimant would have little reason
    for presenting to the land commission his claim to land, and
    securing a confirmation of that claim, if the only result was to
    transfer the naked fee to him, burdened by an Indian right of
    permanent occupancy.” 
    Id. at 492.
    This construction was applied to extinguish aboriginal
    title in California. Super v. Work extended the rationale to
    nomadic, non-Mission Indians. See 
    3 F.2d 90
    (D.C. Cir.
    for “the Indians of California” for the federal government’s failure to
    ratify eighteen treaties with Native Americans, including Treaty D. See
    Indians of California by Webb v. United States, 
    98 Ct. Cl. 583
    (Ct. Cl.
    1942). This litigation was made possible by an Act of Congress in 1928
    granting jurisdiction to the court of claims to hear such cases. The Indians
    of California Act, 25 U.S.C. § 651. The Court of Claims determined that
    the Act granted a right of action for an equitable claim, not a legal one,
    “allowing all the Indians of California to recover the amount specified in
    these unratified treaties, both in the value of the land promised to be set
    aside and the other compensation provided.” Indians of California, 98 Ct.
    Cl. at 598.
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                       17
    1925), aff’d per curiam, 
    271 U.S. 643
    (1926). We declined
    to create an exception to the “extensive reach” of the Act for
    the indigenous occupants of the Santa Barbara Islands. See
    United States ex rel. Chunie v. Ringrose, 
    788 F.2d 638
    , 646
    (9th Cir. 1986) (holding that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
    did not convert tribe’s aboriginal title into recognized title
    and that its aboriginal title was extinguished by its failure to
    present its claim under the Act of 1851).
    The Supreme Court in United States v. Title Insurance &
    Trust Co., 
    265 U.S. 472
    (1924), applied the rule to a dispute
    involving one of the very land patents at issue in this case.
    Despite the condition placed on an 1843 Mexican land that
    the Tejon Mission Indians would be allowed to continue to
    reside there under the protection of the grantees, the Court
    held that the land patent issued pursuant to the grantees’
    presentation to the Commission under the Act of 1851
    “passed the full title, unincumbered [sic] by any right in the
    Indians” to occupy and use the lands. 
    Id. at 482.
    The Court’s
    opinion emphasized the especial importance of repose in
    matters involving land, where titles are “purchased on the
    faith of their stability.” 
    Id. at 487
    (“Doubtful questions on
    subjects of this nature, when once decided, should be
    considered no longer doubtful or subject to change.” (internal
    quotation marks and citation omitted)).
    Thus, the district court correctly concluded that the Tribe
    has no cognizable ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch.
    B
    The Tribe also complains about numerous acts of alleged
    forgery and deception on the part of Edward F. Beale and
    others in obtaining patents for the four Mexican land grants
    18                  ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    comprising Tejon Ranch. On this basis, the Tribe contends
    that Tejon Ranch Defendants’ title—acquired, ultimately,
    from Beale’s patents—is defective. However, all the alleged
    acts occurred prior to the submission of the claims to the
    Commission pursuant to the Land Claims Act of 1851. The
    Commission confirmed all four of the claims, and at least one
    of the patents has survived a challenge in court. See United
    States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 
    288 F. 821
    (9th Cir. 1923),
    aff’d, 
    265 U.S. 472
    (1924). The district court, pointing to the
    value of stability identified by the Supreme Court in Title
    
    Insurance, 265 U.S. at 484
    , concluded that “Plaintiffs cannot
    now challenge the validity of United States issued land
    patents after over a century of time has elapsed.”
    IV
    The Tribe also claims that it owns a 49,000-acre subset of
    Tejon Ranch, known historically as the Tejon or Sebastian
    Reservation (“Reservation”), alleging that a reservation
    reserved to the Tribe was established pursuant to the Act of
    1853. The Tribe claims that the Reservation, once
    established, was never terminated and that it possesses
    superior title to the parcel. The district court properly
    rejected the claim.
    The Tribe argues that the Reservation was created
    pursuant to the Act of Congress of 1853 and that it survived
    a subsequent Act of Congress of 1864. In support of its claim,
    the Tribe cites two letters from the months immediately
    following the passage in 1853: one from President Franklin
    Pierce to Interior Secretary Robert McCelland, and a second
    from Secretary McClelland to Edward F. Beale,
    Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California and Nevada.
    While these letters certainly establish that the President
    ROBINSON V. JEWELL                        19
    directed his officers to execute a plan for creating
    reservations in California, that plan lacks specificity and there
    is no evidence that the President ever approved the creation
    of the Tejon Reservation. Thus, the district court properly
    concluded that it “was not a reservation established by the
    President and therefore cannot provide legal rights to
    plaintiffs.”
    Further, any rights that the Tribe possessed were
    extinguished by the Act of 1864, which superseded the Acts
    of 1853 and 1855 by allowing only four reservations in
    California. Shermoen v. United States, 
    982 F.2d 1312
    , 1315
    (9th Cir. 1992). Mattz v. Arnett, 
    412 U.S. 481
    (1973),
    articulates a relatively high standard for Congressional
    termination of an Indian reservation: “A congressional
    determination to terminate [an Indian reservation] must be
    expressed on the face of the Act or be clear from the
    surrounding circumstances and legislative history.” 
    Id. at 505.
    The district court properly rejected the Tribe’s claims of
    ownership in the Reservation.
    V
    The Tribe’s claims against Kern County are contingent
    upon the establishment of ownership in the Tejon Ranch.
    Because its ownership claim fails, so do its claims against
    Kern County. Robinson’s individual claims against Kern
    County are waived for failure to present a “specific, cogent
    argument for our consideration” on appeal. 
    Greenwood, 28 F.3d at 977
    .
    20                     ROBINSON V. JEWELL
    VI
    The district court properly determined that the Tribe has
    no ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch and that no
    reservation was established. The claims against Kern County
    are subsumed into the ownership determination. The claims
    originally asserted against the Secretary, along with
    Robinson’s individual claims, were waived for failure to
    assert on appeal. We decline to consider the Tribe’s new
    arguments on appeal. We need not reach any other issue
    urged on appeal.8
    AFFIRMED.
    8
    The Tejon Ranch Defendants and Kern County contend that we lack
    jurisdiction, arguing that our Appellate Commissioner erroneously granted
    the Tribe’s motion to reinstate the appeal. A motions panel of our court
    has already considered, and rejected, these arguments, and we conclude
    the Appellate Commissioner acted within his discretion in granting the
    reinstatement motion.