Sioux Refused Black Hills Payment

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nations $122 million for the taking of the Black Hills in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians. The tribes refused the money because accepting it would extinguish their claim to the land, so the award remained in a federal account collecting interest and is now worth more than $1 billion. The dispute traces back to the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, which protected the Black Hills from white settlement before a gold rush and a disputed 1877 cession transferred the land to the United States.

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