United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

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United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

Argued March 24, 1980
Decided June 30, 1980

Full case name:	United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, et al.

Citations:	448 U.S. 371; 100 S. Ct. 2716; 65 L. Ed. 2d 844; 1980 U.S. LEXIS 147

Prior history:	Certiorari to the United States Court of Claims

Holding

Court membership

Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens

Case opinions

Majority by: Blackmun
Joined by: Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell, Stevens; White (parts III, V)
Concurrence by: White
Dissent by: Rehnquist

United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980),^[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established a "legal basis for the compensation of illegally-seized Indian lands."^[2]

In 1868, the Treaty of Fort Laramie ending Red Cloud's War was signed by the United States and the Lakota nation, at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

The treaty included articles intended to "ensure the civilization" of the Lakota; financial incentives for them to farm land and become competitive; and stipulations that minors should be provided with an "English education" at a "mission building". To this end the U.S. government included provisions that white teachers, blacksmiths, and a farmer, a miller, a carpenter, an engineer and a government agent should take up residence within the reservation.

However, in 1877, one year after the resounding defeat of General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the U.S. government seized the Black Hills in violation of the treaty.

More than a century later, after decades of failed legal efforts to regain the Black Hills, the Sioux nation achieved a victory in federal court. On June 30, 1980, the Supreme Court upheld an award of $17.5 million for the market value of the land in 1877, along with 103 years worth of interest at 5 percent, for an additional $105 million. This compensation was declined, however, because acceptance would legally terminate Sioux demands for return of the land; accruing compound interest on the settlement has brought the value of the claim to over $1 billion as of 2008.