1973 - After the Sioux lands were stolen by the government - they couldn't even hire a lawyer to fight it in court, because they could not enter contracts (with anyone, including a lawyer) without the governments permission.

Sioux Treaty Claims Still Unresolved

by Donald Finley

Part 2 of 3 

      1973 July 31 Lebanon Daily News 

            Washington – Ninety-seven years ago Lt Col George Armstrong Custer made his last stand.

      The Civil War hero and all 261 officers and men of his 7th US Cavalry Regiment were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors under Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory on June 25, 1876.

      The battle, one of the US Army’s most ignominious defeats, stemmed from violations of Indian treaty agreements by white men and the federal government after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills on lands that an 1868 treaty had set aside for the sole use of the Sioux.

      Enraged by Custer’s defeat, the government ignored the 1868 treaty and took the Black Hills and other big slices of land from the Sioux, who were relegated to smaller reservations on less desirable lands in South Dakota.

      Fifty years ago, descendants of the Sioux warriors who had annihilated Custer’s force began trying to get what they felt was due them through the white man’s judicial system – either to get the land back even they admit that effort is unrealistic or to get adequate compensation for it.

      But, after 50 years, the Sioux case still is pending before the Indian Claims Commission (ICC).

      Impatience with such delays and smoldering rage  at the white man’s treatment of Indians through the years were among the reasons leaders of the militant American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the South Dakota halmet of Wounded Knee on Feb 27 and held it for three months. Wounded Knee was the site of the last big massacre of Indians by US troops in 1890, a battle that effectively ended Indian resistance to the reservation system.

      AIM’s demands included recognition of Indians as a sovereign nation, enforcement of the 1868 treaty, and return of the Sioux land.

      Although the tribal leadership discounted AIM as a bunch of radical urban Indians, the Wounded Knee takeover and the seizure late last year of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington by AIM brought the Indians’ plight to the attention of the nation and the world more effectively than the 50-year legal struggle.

      The Sioux case, being handled by Washington attorneys Marvin J Sonosky, is only one of scores of Indian claims being pressed before the ICC, federal and state courts and legislative bodies. They are based on claims on broken treaties, broken agreements,  broken laws. 

      But the Sioux case probably is the most dramatic, if for no other reason than its connection with Custer’s Last Stand, and for the size of the claim – more than 55 million acres.

      The Indians had been giving way to the settlers from Europe since the Pilgrims landed, sometimes quietly, sometimes in treaties, often only in battle. Many tribes were exterminated as the white man demanded more and more land.

      But the Western Plains Indians, especially the Sioux, presented the toughest problem for the white man. Tough, fierce and proud, they fought savagely in the bloody Indian wars between 1860 and 1890.

      Discovery of gold in California in 1849 led to the Treaty of Ft Laramie in 1951 with the Sioux and other tribes, defining the Indian lands and granting whites the right of passage.

       In 1861, gold was discovered in Montana, bringing a tide of white movement through Sioux country which resulted in the bloody Powder River War with the Indians.

      This was followed by the 1868 Sioux Treaty under which the United States recognized the Great Sioux Reservation as embracing all of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. It also acknowledged the right of the Sioux to use – but not permanently inhabited – an area about twice that size, to the west, south and north of the reservation. The Sioux granted rights of passage by whites through this territory.

      The reservation, which the treaty “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Sioux, included the Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred place the Sioux called Paha-Sapa.

      But when gold was found in those hills, the government moved to persuade the Sioux to cede Paha-Sapa to the United States. When the Indians refused, the government began what Sonosky terms a “Deliberate program to force the Sioux to sell the Black Hills.”

      Unable to persuade Congress to cut off the Sioux’s $1.25 million annual ration allotment, President Ulysses S Grant and Interior Secretary Zachariah Chandler issued orders Dec 3, 1875, requiring all Sioux to be back on the reservation by Jan 31, 1876. Otherwise, they would be considered “hostiles” ad subject to being shot on sight.

      But it was a terrible winter on the plains, and the messenger sent to notify the Sioux, who were hunting buffalo in the Powder River Country of Wyoming, didn’t get back to Sioux territory until Feb 11.

      It was impossible for the Sioux, their women and children to meet the Jan 31 deadline – even if they had wanted to. And they really didn’t want to, because they considered the order a violation of the 1868 treaty that gave them the right to hunt in the Powder River Country.

      Chandler turned the matter over to the Army on Feb 1 and Gen Philip Sheridan began preparations to force the “hostiles” back onto the reservation, where hunting was poor.

      In June, Army forces began converging on the main Sioux and Cheyenne encampment in Montana Territory. Custer was sent ahead with his 7th Cavlary regiment, but Brig Gen Alfred Terry ordered him not to attack until the main body of troops was in place.

      Custer disobeyed these orders. When he came upon the Sioux, he split his 675-man command into three groups and ordered an attack, confident of victory and glory.

      But the Indians had several thousand warriors in the area, not a few hundred Custer expected. Custer and the five companies of troops he led were surrounded ad wiped out. The only survivor was an Army horse named Comanche.

     The other two groups he had split off also suffered heavy causalities, but their remnants managed to hold out until a relief column arrived.

      News of Custer’s defeat reached Washington July 5, during the 100th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Congress immediately voted to cut off Sioux rations unless the Indians agreed to sell the Black Hills and all other lands outside their reservation.

      The 1868 treaty stipulated that any disposal of the Sioux lands would have to be signed by three-fourths of the mail audit Indians. Even when armed with the “sell or starve” mandate from Congress, the government could get the signatures of only 16%. 

      Ignoring this, Congress voted Feb 28, 1877, to take the Black Hills and the Sioux hunting grounds from the Indians. Part of the Great Sioux Reservation itself also was taken later.

      Sonosky said the Sioux for many years sought redress from Congress, but federal laws barred Indian tribes from bringing suit against the government. Tribes also were not permitted to make contracts with lawyers to represent them on claims unless the contracts were approved by the Interior secretary and the Indian Affairs commissioner. 

      “Since the grievances of the Indians were grievances against the very officers who had to approve their contracts,” Sonosky said, “the Indians were effectively deprived by this statute of one of the most basic rights known to Anglo-Saxon law – the right to free choice of counsel for the redress of injuries.”

      Finally in 1920, Congress passed a special statute allowing the Sioux to sue in the Court of Claims, which handles suits against the government. The Sioux case was filed in 1923, but it was dismissed in 1942 for lack of jurisdiction. 

      Congress created the Indian Claims Commission (ICC) in 1946 to hear Indian claims that had accrued prior to that date. The Sioux refilled their claim in 1950, but the ICC dismissed it in 1954 and the Court of Claims affirmed the dismissal. 

      Sonosky said he became the Sioux attorney at this point and that after he filed new motions, the Court of Claims reversed itself in 1958 and returned the case to the ICC for further hearings.

      The ICC immediately recognized the 7.3 million acres of Black Hills country as having been Sioux land in 1876, and after hearings the ICC decided that 48.14 million acres of additional land east and west of the Missouri River outside the Great Sioux Reservation also belonged to the Sioux.

      Still pending are rulings on the value of all this land at the time it was taken from the Indians nearly 100 years ago. The Sioux claim the land value was $90.5 million, but the government said it was worth only $16.7 million. Under existing legal precedents, the Sioux would be entitled only to what the land was worth then, not what it is worth now.

      But Sonosky said he fears a final judgment still is years away.

      “The Sioux claim is probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest pending litigation in the United States,” he said.

      “Generations of Sioux have passed since this claim was first brought to the courts in 1923. The end is not yet in sight. Delay should not be the object of justice. Justice delayed is injustice.” 

1973 July 31 Lebanon Daily News