In Mitchel v. United States (1835) 34 U.S. 711, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of title acquired from an Indian Tribe in present-day Florida, because Spain had ratified the Tribal sale and thereby extinguished aboriginal title to the property. (See 34 U.S. at 751-53.) The Supreme Court affirmed the notion that aboriginal title was "as sacred as the fee simple of the whites" and analogized the sovereign's right as an "ultimate reversion in fee" subject to the Tribe's "perpetual right of occupancy." (34 U.S. at 746, 756.) The Supreme Court addressed an issue relating to land in Florida granted to private parties by Creek and Seminole Indians in 1804 and 1806. The private individuals claimed their title under deeds from the Indians that had been confirmed by Spain prior to Spain ceding Florida to the United States by treaty. In explaining the nature and extent of Indian title to the lands, (id. at 745), the Court set forth how those rights were viewed by the British, who had governed Florida for twenty years from 1763 to 1783: "One uniform rule seems to have prevailed from their first settlement, as appears by their laws; that friendly Indians were protected in the possession of the lands they occupied, and were considered as owning them by a perpetual right of possession in the tribe or nation inhabiting them, as their common property, from generation to generation, as the right of individuals located on particular spots. Subject to this right of possession, the ultimate fee was in the crown and its grantees , which could be granted by the crown or colonial legislatures while the lands remained in possession of the Indians, though possession could not be taken without their consent. .... The merits of this case do not make it necessary to inquire whether the Indians within the United States had any other rights of soil or jurisdiction; it is enough to consider it as a settled principle, that their right of occupancy is considered as sacred as the fee simple of the whites."(Id. at 745-46). The Indian sale of property in Mitchel had occurred with the consent of Spain, the sovereign at the time.