In Winters v. United States (1908), the Supreme Court held that the right to use waters flowing through or adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation was reserved to American Indians by the treaty establishing the reservation. Although this treaty did not mention water rights, the Court ruled that the federal government, when it created the reservation, intended to deal fairly with American Indians by reserving for them the waters without which their lands would have been useless. Later decisions, citing Winters, established that courts can find federal rights to reserve water for particular purposes if (1) the land in question lies within an enclave under exclusive federal jurisdiction, (2) the land has been formally withdrawn from federal public lands—i.e, withdrawn from the stock of federal lands available for private use under federal land use laws—and set aside or reserved, and (3) the circumstances reveal the government intended to reserve water as well as land when establishing the reservation.
Some American Indians tribes have also established water rights through the courts based on their traditional diversion and use of certain waters prior to the United States’ acquisition of sovereignty. For example, the Rio Grande pueblos already existed when the United States acquired sovereignty over New Mexico in 1848. Although they at that time became part of the United States, the pueblo lands never formally constituted a part of federal public lands; in any event, no treaty, statute, or executive order has ever designated or withdrawn the pueblos from public lands as American Indian reservations. This fact, however, has mot barred application of the Winters doctrine. What constitutes an American Indian reservation is a question of practice, not of legal definition, and the pueblos have always been treated as reservations by the United States. This pragmatic approach is buttressed by Arizona v. California (1963), wherein the Supreme Court indicated that the manner in which any type of federal reservation is created does not affect the application to it of the Winters doctrine. Therefore, the reserved water rights of Pueblo Indians have priority over other citizens’ water rights as of 1848, the year in which pueblos must be considered to have become reservations.
在1908年的美国温特斯法案中，最高法院认定，贝克纳城堡印第安人保留地的印第安人使用流经或邻近该保留地水源的权利受建立此保留地的协约保护。尽管协约没有提及用水权，但是经法院裁定认为，联邦政府在建立保留地时，意在公平地对待美国印第安人，如果没有用水权，保留的土地也就没有用了。援引温特斯法案，后来规定在以下三种情况下，法院可以裁定联邦有权利因特殊目的保留水源。1、争议土地位于联邦管辖的印第安保留地中，2、这片土地已经正式脱离联邦公共用地，成为联邦土地使用法保护下的私人用地或留作它用，3、政府在建立保留地的同时有意图保留用水权。
基于美国独立之前他们就在使用的原有分水渠，一些美国印第安部落也通过法院确立了用水权。例如普韦布洛印第安人聚居地在1984年美国获得新墨西哥州统治权之前就已存在，尽管普韦布洛在1984年成了美国领土的一部分，在普韦布洛从未建立过联邦公共用地;从没有协约、法令或行政命令指明将普韦布洛脱离联邦政府作为保留地。然而这些事实并不影响温特斯法案在普韦布洛的适用性。事实上建立保留地只是一个实际操作问题，而不是法律定义的问题，因为普韦布洛一向被政府视作保留地。这种实际操作在1963年Arizona VS California的案例中得到支持，在该案例中最高法院表示保留地是通过何种方式建立起来的并不影响温特斯法案对它的适用性。因此，从1848年起，即普韦布洛被认定为保留地的那一年开始，普韦布洛部落的人就享有优先用水权。
