United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

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Mount Rushmore, perhaps the most famous monument in the United States, is located in the Black Hills
Pactola Lake in the Black Hills in June 2004
Map of the original boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation, and the current boundaries of the reservations. Bottom left are the controversial Black Hills
Federal Government Control Areas in South Dakota, The map shows that most of the disputed areas are owned by the federal government. A return to the independent Sioux nations would be possible in principle.
The questionable photograph from 1877 is said to show the Sioux chief Crazy Horse after the Black Hills cession

United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1980. The plaintiffs were the Sioux Indian tribes in the US state of South Dakota . Disputes were whether the US Congress in 1876 had the right to separate the mountainous region of the Black Hills from the area of ​​the Great Sioux Reservation and whether the Sioux had been adequately compensated for this loss of territory or not. In the decision, the court awarded the Sioux tribes compensation. This has not yet been accepted by the tribes and is now over 1 billion US dollars (as of 2016). In addition, the court ruled that the tribes could continue to sue for their rights in the area. This means that the issue that has preoccupied courts since 1920 has still not been conclusively clarified. The Sioux continue to insist on the return of the mountains that they consider sacred.

background

In the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 , the territories of the Great Sioux Nation were contractually established. The Heart River was determined as the northern limit . After the victory of the Lakota in the Red Cloud War (1866–1868), the Great Sioux Reservation as a permanent settlement area and extensive hunting and fishing rights in neighboring areas were guaranteed to them in the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 . The treaty designated the entire present-day US state of South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills (from the northern border in Nebraska to the 46th parallel and from Missouri in the east to the 104th longitude in the west) as Indian land unrestricted and unmolested use and settlement by the Sioux. The Sioux also received hunting rights in other areas, north and west of the reservation in what is now Wyoming , Montana and Nebraska. The Bureau of Indian Affairs set up several Indian agencies on the reservation, including what is now the Standing Rock Agency . In 1875 the agency's area was expanded. Instead of the 46th parallel, the Cannonball River now formed the new northern border.

Originally the Great Sioux Reservation belonging to Black Hills are the Lakota as sacred mountains . They are also the subject of numerous Lakota myths. Tribesmen still visit the spiritual places in the mountains to practice their religion. An expedition under George Armstrong Custer, illegal under the Treaty, explored the Black Hills in 1874 and found gold in the mountains . Gold seekers illegally entered the area, a gold rush developed and conflicts arose between the gold seekers and the Lakota. After the defeat in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 ​​and another defeat, the US government legally withdrew the Black Hills from the Sioux in 1877 . She broke the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, which had required the consent of three-quarters of the male residents to assignments. The Sioux do not recognize the law from 1877 until today.

In the lawsuit, the Sioux argued: An agreement from 1876 between the federal government and the Sioux had only been signed by ten percent of the tribal members. The signing was also made under duress, since the signing was dependent on food deliveries after the lost war. The law passed by Congress also violates the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution, which forbids the expropriation of private property without compensation.

The United States Congress divided the Great Sioux Reservation with the Dawes Act 1887, initially into parcels and with a further law on March 2, 1889 into separate reservations, reducing the Indian land by a total of eleven million acres . The residents only reluctantly and under great pressure agreed to the division.

As early as 1923, several Sioux tribes had sued the federal government in the United States Court of Claims. This lawsuit was rejected by the court in 1942 on the grounds that the court could no longer determine whether the food and other deliveries from the federal government were sufficient as compensation. Even after the Treaty of Fort Laramie, monetary payments continued to be made to the tribes. The signatories of the 'Agreement' undertook to accept the deliveries and payments as compensation.

hearing

The hearing took place on March 24, 1980.

Decision of the court

The United States Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun took the lead in the process and drafted the judge’s opinion and opinion . Federal Judges Warren E. Burger , William Joseph Brennan , Potter Stewart , Thurgood Marshall , Lewis F. Powell, and John Paul Stevens endorsed this view. Federal Judge Byron White only supported parts of the position. None of the judges responsible developed a completely different opinion. The decision was made on June 30, 1980.

Rejection of the plaintiff

Despite the poverty on their reservations, the Sioux refuse to accept the funds. The funds are administered and held by the Bureau of Indian Affairs , a division of the US Department of the Interior. The original amount was $ 105 million. Today there are more than 1 billion in the account. The Sioux mean too little. The state of South Dakota generates more than 2 billion revenue annually from tourism alone. The Sioux want their land back and compensation for 120 years of lost revenue because the Black Hills, unlike their reservation areas, are rich in mineral resources.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website of the reserve: History ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 19, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / standingrock.org
  2. ↑ Bureau of Indian Affairs : Standing Rock Agency ( Memento of the original dated November 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 18, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bia.gov
  3. ^ Gail Evans-Hatch: Centuries Along The Upper Niobrara. (PDF) In: NPS History Electronic Library, 2008. Retrieved March 18, 2017
  4. ↑ Timeline: Black Hills Expedition of 1874. In: Public Broadcasting Service . Retrieved March 16, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b Broken Promises: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Cites History of Government Betrayal in Pipeline Fight. In: ABCNews , November 22, 2016.
  6. ↑ Subsequently, in 1876, an “agreement” presented to the Sioux by a special Commission but signed by only 10% of the adult male Sioux population, provided that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the unceded territories , in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed. ( supreme.justia.com ).
  7. ↑ … nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. ( law.cornell.edu ).
  8. ↑ Timothy J. Kloberdanz: In The Land of Th [e] Indian Woslata: Plains Indian Influences on Reservation Whites. In: Great Plains Quarterly. Paper 323, 1987.
  9. ↑ Throughout the twentieth century, Lakota leaders demanded redress for the illegal seizure of Lakota treaty lands. Filing a series of cases against the US government, including a failed Court of Claims attempt in 1942 ( encyclopedia.com ).
  10. ↑ Article of the 1877 agreement The said Indians also agree that they will hereafter receive all annuities provided by the said treaty of 1868, and all subsistence and supplies which may be provided for them under the present or any future act of Congress, at such points and places on the said reservation, and in the vicinity of the Missouri River, as the President of the United States shall designate ( digital.library.okstate.edu ).
  11. ↑ Payments under the Treaty of 1868 were made due to other assignments and not for the Black Hills. Primarily these were areas in Minnesota, Wyoming and Montana.
  12. ^ For Great Sioux Nation, Black Hills Can't Be Bought for $ 1.3 Billion