United States V. Sioux Nation of Indians - Facts of The Case

Facts of The Case

The Fort Laramie Treaty of April 29, 1868, pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians." By the terms of the treaty, cession of any part of the reservation required a new treaty executed and signed by at least three fourths of all the adult male Indians occupying the land. The Fort Laramie Treaty ended the Powder River War of 1866-1867, a series of military engagements in which the Sioux tribes, led by chief Red Cloud, fought to protect the integrity of earlier-recognized treaty lands from the incursion of white settlers.

The 1868 treaty brought peace for a few years, but in 1874 an exploratory expedition under General George A. Custer entered the Black Hills to investigate rumors of gold. "Custer's florid descriptions of the mineral and timber resources of the Black Hills, and the land's suitability for grazing and cultivation... received wide circulation, and had the effect of creating an intense popular demand for the 'opening' of the Hills for settlement." Initially the U.S. military tried to turn away trespassing miners and settlers. Eventually however President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, "decided that the military should make no further resistance to the occupation of the Black Hills by miners." These orders were to be enforced "quietly," and the President's decision was to remain "confidential."

As more and more settlers and gold miners invaded the Black Hills the Government concluded that the only practical course was to take the land from the Sioux, and appointed a commission to negotiate the purchase. The negotiations failed, and so the US resorted to military force. They used as a pretext to declare the Sioux Indians "hostile," their failure to obey an order to return from an off-reservation hunting expedition in the dead of winter when travel was impossible. The consequent military expedition to remove the Sioux from the Black Hills included an attack on their village on the Little Bighorn River led by General Custer. The attack culminated in the victory of Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse over the 7th Cavalry Regiment now known as Custer's Last Stand.

That victory was short-lived. Those Indians who survived subsequent battles to surrender to the Army were interned on a reservation, and deprived of their weapons and horses, "leaving them completely dependent for survival on rations provided them by the Government." In August 1876, Congress enacted a bill cutting off appropriations "made for the subsistence" of the Sioux, unless they ceded the Black Hills to the United States. A commission headed by George Manypenny presented the Sioux with a new treaty and they signed, under threat of starvation. But only a few leaders signed, not the 3/4 majority of all Indian males on the reservation as required under the Fort Laramie Treaty.