Why did a question that sounds so obvious require a federal ruling?

Part of the answer lies in the unusual legal position the United States assigned to Native nations.

From the early republic onward, federal law treated tribal nations neither as ordinary states nor simply as foreign countries.

Supreme Court doctrines described tribes through categories such as “domestic dependent nations,” while treaties, statutes, executive actions, and administrative practices created overlapping forms of recognition and control.

That structure produced contradictions.

The United States could make treaties with Native nations, acknowledging political status.