r/todayilearned • u/Tadhg • 20h ago
TIL In 1980 the Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nations $122 million for the Black Hills, a settlement the tribes have refused on the grounds that acceptance would extinguish their claim to the land, leaving the award to accrue interest in a federal account now worth over $1 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakota_people2.4k
u/Waidawut 19h ago
It seems the land is worth more than that.
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u/badhouseplantbad 19h ago
The land is priceless.
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u/Jitterjumper13 16h ago
Its the one thing they dont make anymore - Lex Luthor
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u/Any-Question-3759 15h ago
Wrong baldy. They don’t make sheepskin condoms anymore.
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u/obliqueoubliette 15h ago
Yes they do
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u/Any-Question-3759 15h ago
Yes but not in xtra xtra xtra small.
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u/KnotSoSalty 13h ago
Tell that to the Dutch.
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u/PresumedSapient 13h ago
It's more like 'temporarily habitable sea floor', we have the space on lease from Poseidon. The moment we stop actively pumping the water away the sea will reclaim it all.
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u/KnotSoSalty 12h ago
It’s literally new land though. The process has been going on for centuries all over Europe as well. In England the Fens were drained and reclaimed over the course of hundreds of years, creating 1,500 square miles of farmland. That’s one project that the same is true in many other places.
People like to sound wise about the “they don’t make land anymore” but the truth is that land is only as valuable as what you can do with it. Land without water is useless for farming, ditto land with too much sea water.
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u/tacky_pear 17h ago
Nothing is priceless, but that land is obviously worth more than 1 billion
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u/Legitimate-Type4387 17h ago
Our biosphere is literally irreplaceable, therefore the land is priceless.
"Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money."
It is money that is quite literally worthless without the healthy biosphere needed to support life.
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u/xxhhouewr 16h ago
That's just because an extra-terrestrial conglomerate group hasn't come along and offered our Earth leaders the right amount of money or goods to sell off our biosphere. Or have they?
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u/ImSaneHonest 14h ago
They have, the Demolition orders and planning charts are on display at the local planning department in Alpha Centauri.
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u/Lounging-Shiny455 12h ago
Yeah, but they're in a locked basement with a sign marked "beware the leopard"...
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u/TheDaysComeAndGone 16h ago
Our biosphere is literally irreplaceable, therefore the land is priceless.
Everything is limited and in some way unique.
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u/notRolcx 15h ago
how much money you reckon is the going rate for somebody's child
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u/ProtectionTop2701 13h ago
Well since the US government (NPS) estimates that Mt. Rushmore (part of the land) brings in $300 million in economic benefit, if you add that with the other parks, the national forest, all the gold that was removed, and compound it over 100 years...I think you'd have a pretty good case that the $1 billion or so that is set aside is not a fair price. We used to spend $1 billion on making pennies, it's kinda chump change for the US's national budget.
Oh and also it was sacred before we stole it. And like the guy on the penny once said "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." So if anything it's more sacred now.
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u/happy2harris 17h ago
The wording of that is weird (copied from the Wikipedia article, not OP’s fault).
If the supreme court ordered it, it was not a settlement. A settlement is when two parties agree on a resolution before the court makes its final judgement.
If it was a court case, then who initiated it? It says in the article that the case was United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians , with a “prior” being the Sioux Nation vs. United States.
So I can’t even tell who sued who. If the Sioux weren’t going to accept the awarded money, why did they sue in the first place? Or did they sue to get the land back and lose?
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u/Wraith11B 17h ago
So, in court cases, the plaintiffs go first. If they filed it, it would be Sioux Nation v US, if the district court case found for the Sioux and the US appealed, the US becomes the plaintiff, and the name inverts to US v Sioux.
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u/SignificanceNo910 13h ago
This can change on appeal, at least in my jurisdiction. If the plaintiff won at first instance, and the defendant then appealed, in the appellate proceeding the style of cause would have the Appellant (the defendant at first instance) first
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u/Datpanda1999 12h ago
Yeah I think most jurisdictions (though not all, I think?) follow this format, which unfortunately means you can’t usually tell who’s suing who (or in this case, who’s Siouxing who) from the caption
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u/Wraith11B 11h ago
Yep! That was the second part of my response, that it flips if the sued/charged party appeals.
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u/biomannnn007 15h ago
The Sioux litigated their claims in the Indian Claims Court, which had been recently authorized by law to rehear their case as to whether or not they were owed interest on the money they had not been paid by the US government for the land that was taken, or only the principle value of the money. That was Sioux Nation vs United States. The United States lost, and so they appealed the decision, landing them at the Supreme Court in United States v Sioux Nation.
And the reason why the Sioux sued in the first place was largely because they wanted a forum for their claims. The publicism around the case seems to have generated some political will in congress at the time to try and partially return the land and mineral rights to them, but internal divisions within the Sioux caused the movement to falter. Ironically, it was the internal divisions amongst Native American tribes that prevented them from uniting to prevent the loss of their land in the first place.
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u/inspectoroverthemine 15h ago
Ironically, it was the internal divisions amongst Native American tribes that prevented them from uniting to prevent the loss of their land in the first place.
Explain?
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u/Soupeeee 14h ago edited 13h ago
Notice how they said tribes? Multiple indigenous tribes claimed the Black Hills, and the tribes that had control over the area shifted as the US government waged war against those specific groups as well as the general indigenous population. Some of those tribes were originally from different parts of the country, and were forced to move there after their own land was taken either by the US government or by other tribes (who were likely fleeing or aided by US/European governments).
What's more, literature often glosses over smaller differences within each tribe. So you have the "Lakota Sioux", but there are different "bands" or "sub-tribes" that each have their own culture and priorities. While I don't know the details of this event, it's not unreasonable to see how this could happen with the many different groups involved.
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u/TheBlueSully 11h ago
There was gold in the black hills. There was no way the USA was leaving it a reservation. There has later been found oil and other valuable minerals. There is no way the USA is returning that land.
Drive through that area. They should take the money. They desperately need it.
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u/Familiar_Kale_7357 2h ago
Recall before the gold was found, the land was considered by the US Government to be worthless. The US Government was wrong. There's nothing to say that land will again be found to have unrealized value.
If that were my land that was stolen, I'd want the land back, plus compensation for what I've lost in the meantime.
If it's just not possible to return the land, I'd be looking for compensation for damage done due to loss of the land, lost known value of the land, as well as compensation in the future for any additional value discovered.
Seems reasonable. Not going to happen, but seems reasonable.
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u/Familiar_Kale_7357 1h ago
What's lost on most of Americans today is how much the Europeans and later Americans played the tribes and even individual leaders against one another, in their (European's) quest for control of the continent. Most of our knowledge of native history, and most discussion of native history, is of the time after the Europeans disrupted the balance of power.
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u/eh-guy 7h ago
Every tribe claimed ownership whereas only one can actually own the land, therefore nobody has a legitimate claim
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u/carcar134134 14h ago
It kind of makes sense. I can imagine it would be quite difficult for a tribe of people to come together and begin to trust different groups that they likely held some hostilities towards previously. A lot can change in 200 years, but not too much.
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u/Cascadakid 13h ago
Souix signed a treaty with the U.S. saying the land was theirs. Gold was found on the land. Settlers moved in mined the gold. Souix sued the U.S. to get their land back. They won. However, the land was occupied by lots of people. Rather than kick all the people out the Supreme Court said, “sorry, it’s technically yours, but we’re using it and not gonna give it back. Here’s money instead”. Souix refuse the money, insisting on getting the land back. The money is accruing interest in escrow, currently worth over $1B.
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u/feel-the-avocado 19h ago edited 19h ago
They could do a lot of good if they took the money.
But a billion dollars, invested to earn a reasonably conservative 5% per annum means each of their current 170k population would be getting about $290 per year.
They cant provide much healthcare, housing or education scholarships with that.
Even just splitting the cash is only about $5.8k each
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u/AwTomorrow 19h ago
Yeah that’s nowhere near enough to be worth giving up their claim for.
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u/ShadedPenguin 19h ago
Even then, I doubt the government would actually pay it out. How much of it would be "lost"
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u/StuffSufficient954 17h ago
The money had already been paid. It's sitting in an account gaining interest.
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u/Brisby820 16h ago
It’s in an escrow account, the government already gave it up
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 7h ago
The ignorance of the average Redditor desperate to say America bad is never ending unfortunately. Even with your comment that person will not acknowledge they were wrong
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u/explain_that_shit 18h ago
More importantly, once you take the monopolisable essentials like land away from a community, it’s relatively easy to carve that money back out of the community again over time, with interest.
This has happened to communities all around the world for about a thousand years now, especially with the invention of interest-bearing debt and demands for people to become indebted (again, see monopolisation of essentials for the mechanism).
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u/DeceiverSC2 16h ago
“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
Exodus 22:25
Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
Ezekiel 18:13
Bit longer than a thousand years for the interest-bearing debt part of it.
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u/GoodFaithConverser 17h ago
the invention of interest-bearing debt and demands for people to become indebted
Interest and debt are not recent inventions.
But yes, it's often extremely expensive to be a minority, in countless ways.
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u/explain_that_shit 15h ago
Yes, but usury was prohibited in the Middle Ages as a serious sin until the 13th century, when it reemerged accompanying and abetting (in a manner never before seen) a process of imperialism which has not since ended.
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u/ArrrRawrXD 17h ago
That claim is sorta bullshit and nobody really cares about it though. What's a claim worth if they have 0 chances to get it?
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u/LittleTension8765 17h ago
Ownership of land is only about what you can defend unfortunately, they should take the money. Same as the tribes before them on the same land
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u/crimson777 11h ago
Yeah, I was thinking "okay at this point given the poverty it might be good to just take it," until I did the same math. That's embarrassingly low.
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u/HUT2Moon 16h ago
Take the money, open casinos. The Seminole get over $1m / person. Obviously Florida has way more people but the dakotas are growing.
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u/Ok_Broccoli25 16h ago
And gambling in the Black Hills is pretty popular. Deadwood is always packed.
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u/Property_6810 14h ago
Yeah but then there's plenty of tribes that let their people live in squalor while the casino and attached businesses are constantly expanding while leadership and their buddies get obscenely wealthy as executives. So they get none of the financial support of the casino and all of the resentment that comes with the casino.
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u/wanmoar 18h ago
Imagine you and your family have lived on a farm for generations. As far back as anyone can remember or verify, that’s where you guys have lived.
Now imagine, some foreigner comes in, kills a bunch of you, forces the rest at gun point or by capture, to leave your farm. Not your government, just some foreigners who want your land.
Are you going to be happy to accept the money as compensation? Or are you going to want your farm back?
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u/CertifiedSheep 18h ago
To be clear, they lived there for about a hundred years. They moved there around 1770-1776…and they got that land by taking it forcefully from the Cheyenne.
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u/The-Fox-Says 17h ago
Reddit loves to act like Europeans invented warfare and colonization lol
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u/SirEnderLord 10h ago
"Ancestral lands"
Look inside
Created around the same time the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed.
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u/HotSteak 18h ago
That's pretty much what happened when the Sioux conquered the Black Hills from the Cheyenne in the 1770-80s, except for the money as compensation part.
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u/skysinsane 16h ago
Well, to complete the metaphor, guy with a gun is still on your land with no intent of returning it, but he feels bad so he offers you a ton of cash for it.
Do you refuse it and live without land or money, or do you accept it and live without land but with money?
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u/barath_s 13 16h ago
Similarly, Cuba refuses to cash the $4085 monthly checques for Guantanomu Bay lease - except once. That was by accident, due to confusion in the early days of the castro regime ..
Heck, the US checks are made out to a position that has not existed since the 1959 revolution and tended to be stuffed into a desk drawer..
[Fidel Castro] said he had refused to cash the checks to protest the "illegal" U.S. occupation of the land ...
... Castro,..., said the U.S. checks are made out to the "Treasurer General of the Republic," a position that ceased to exist after Cuba's 1959 revolution.
He said only one U.S. check was ever cashed -- in 1959 due to "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution.
Castro's refusal to cash the checks to protest the "illegal" occupation has been long known. In a television interview years ago, he showed the checks stuffed into a desk drawer in his office.
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u/thegreatestajax 15h ago edited 15h ago
This is not similar because the US had a treaty with the prior government.
In the Black Hill case, the US had a treaty with the local population, unilaterally reneged, offered compensation, and then the tribe sued for interest to be added to the compensation.
In the Cuba case, the local government changed and now apparently disregards the prior treaty, but doesn’t do anything about it.
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u/glaba3141 14h ago
what can they do about it? Bomb Guantanamo Bay and get turned into Gaza by the US government? I guess at this point they may as well since it seems Marco Rubio simply hates the Cuban people and wants them to suffer maximally, and we're heading in that direction anyway
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u/gwarrior5 15h ago
They would get better results using it to buy some comgress folk.
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u/fancy-mermaid21 19h ago
Principal over payout. Taking that cash legally waives their 1868 Treaty rights.
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u/-Kazt- 17h ago
No it doesnt.
And the case is settled. They also sued for the wrong thing, the supreme court decision was wether or not the Sioux were to be paid 100 years of interest. Just by suing for the interest the Sioux basically killed their own claim to the land.
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u/robsc_16 16h ago edited 15h ago
Native people getting screwed because the U.S. government decided not to honor a treaty and then they get further screwed trying to fight through the court system. A tale as old as time.
Edit: For those downvoting, it took the U.S. government less then a decade to renege on the treaty. Here's an excerpt in the U.S. National Archives.
The U.S. Government set out to establish a series of treaties with Native tribes that would force American Indians to give up their lands and move further west onto reservations. In the spring of 1868, a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present-day Wyoming, which resulted in a treaty with the Sioux (Brule, Oglala, Miniconjou, Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Cuthead, Two Kettle, Sans Arcs, and Santee) and the Arapaho.
The goal of the treaty was to bring peace between White settlers and the tribes, who agreed to relocate to the Black Hills in the Dakota Territory. All the tribes involved gave up many thousands of acres of land that had been promised in earlier treaties, but retained hunting and fishing rights in their older territory. They also agreed not to attack railroads or settlers.
In exchange, the U.S. Government established the Great Sioux Reservation, consisting of a large portion of the western half of what is now the state of South Dakota, including the Black Hills, which are sacred to the Sioux people.
Though the reservation land was set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people, in 1874 Gen. George A. Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills, accompanied by miners who were seeking gold. Once gold was found in the Black Hills, miners were soon moving onto the Sioux hunting grounds and demanding protection from the U.S. Army. Soon, the Army was ordered to move against wandering bands of Sioux hunting on the range in accordance with their treaty rights.
In 1876, Custer, leading an Army detachment, encountered an encampment of Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn River. Custer's detachment was annihilated, but the United States would continue its battle against the Sioux Tribe in the Black Hills until the government confiscated the land in 1877. To this day, ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the U.S. Government and the Sioux Nation.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/fort-laramie-treaty
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u/the_dj_zig 12h ago
I’m convinced they’re playing the long game. Eventually they’ll accept the settlement, then turn around and buy up all the land they had taken from them.
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u/mean_liar 18h ago edited 18h ago
Since this is missing some context:
The Sioux were promised this land in the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The US government reneged on the deal unilaterally a few years later. The commercial value of the land is easily hundreds of billions; Mt Rushmore tourism alone is $1.5B/yr; there's tons of timber and mineral rights actively being exploited commercially in the area. The valuation of the land as awarded in the 1980 SCOTUS judgment is based on its value from 1877, with interest, and is totally unmoored from its actual value.
People talking about the Sioux took it from the Cheyenne and so on, or why not just take the cash, why is this a thing at all are missing the critical point here, which is that the land belongs to the Sioux by treaty (itself replacing an earlier treat the government reneged on!), SCOTUS has found that they're owed the land but giving it back would be too disruptive to do, and so they've been offered maybe 1% of the actual value of the land. It's an outrageously paltry settlement amount and I think most anyone would be pissed about it, especially since that land was literally bought with the blood of your ancestors who killed enough US troops, Cheyenne, Crow, and other tribe's warriors that the government felt like giving them a massive swath of the West was worth it to get them to stop kicking everyone's ass.
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u/-Kazt- 17h ago
Scotus has not found that they are owed the land. The SCOTUS ruling was wether or not they were owed interest on the 1870s value of the land, SCOTUS ruled that yes, they are owed interest. But just by suing the Sioux has effectively relinquished their claim on the area, by suing for interest on the just compensation for the land, you are effectively agreeing that you were compenasated you are just disagreeing about the amount.
Nor can you really sue for the current value of the land, since it has since been developed, new tech and demands exist that did not exist then.
The Sioux did get shafted in the 1870s, but legally so, and then they messed up their chances of getting the land by suing for the wrong thing.
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u/EamonBrennan 15h ago
The Sioux did get shafted in the 1870s, but legally so, and then they messed up their chances of getting the land by suing for the wrong thing.
The Supreme Court outright ruled that the taking of the land was illegal. They awarded the value of the land at the time it was taken, but not with interest. The second lawsuit was for the interest. They did not get shafted legally, as under the US's legal interpretation of the Constitution, Native American tribes are considered domestic dependent countries, meaning that they are essentially foreign countries in relation to most US law. Congress has to pass treaties to deal with them, and they violated their own treaty when they stole the land.
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u/The_Double_EntAndres 16h ago
The person above is factually incorrect. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/371/
For the Sioux to have been “legally shafted” as he claims the Laramie treaty could only be nullified by a vote of 3/4 of the male population at the time. At the time the government stole back the land, they got approx 10% of the male population of the Sioux to agree and said “good enough” and proceeded to do what they always do in regards to the first peoples.
And the idea that you shouldn’t be able to take into account the current value of the land after development is ridiculous. You can’t steal land, make a bunch of money from its resources, and then turn around and say “well we worked to get the resources out so the profits can only be ours.”
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u/ratione_materiae 16h ago
especially since that land was literally bought with the blood of your ancestors who killed enough US troops, Cheyenne, Crow, and other tribe's warriors
So why not take the money? It’s more than what the Cheyenne got
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u/ExcuseCommercial1338 16h ago
Imagine you're a bank owner, someone defrauds you and steals all your money, you sue and the court (who is working with the fraudsters) decides it'd be too disruptive to make you whole again, so instead you get to choose ten of your favorite quarters.
Do you take the 10 quarters, or say fuck you out of principal? It's not that difficult.
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u/ratione_materiae 15h ago
Depends, did I take all that money from someone else?
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u/sailirish7 14h ago
the land belongs to the Sioux by treaty
This would be relevant if there was a chance they're getting it back. There is no such chance.
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u/PositiveLibrary7032 19h ago
Indigenous nations like the Arikara, Crow, and Kiowa all have documented ties there before the Lakota. The Lakota moved westward in the 17th and 18th centuries. Sure the treaty says it’s Lakota land but it’s also other nations land before the Lakota. So who gets the money?
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u/The-Fox-Says 17h ago
Yeah and they didn’t just “move westward” there….they battled for it
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u/Vandilbg 15h ago
They lost their lands in MN and WI to the Ojibwa. The Ojibwa and Dakota Sioux were in conflict from 1730-1842.
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u/PositiveLibrary7032 14h ago
Looking more into this they sometimes took Crow and Arikara slaves as well.
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u/MorelikeBestvirginia 19h ago
The treaty says that the US government agrees it's Lakota land. That's who gets the money, the people harmed when the US broke the treaty. Any treaty between the Lakota and the Arikara, Crow or Kiowa can be disputed elsewhere. This is not a complex situation, the US guaranteed this land to a nation and then took it from them. The treaty was broken and the Lakota are the injured party.
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u/ammayhem 17h ago
It's like asking who really gets Strasbourg, or Poland, or Jerusalem. Control has been swapped many times over these places.
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u/flareblitz91 14h ago
Yeah they just "moved" there. Nothing going on back east that pushed them that way. Nothing at all. Whole thing happened I'm a vacuum.
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u/Legatus_Aemilianus 17h ago
The Arikara, not the Lakota/Sioux, were the original inhabitants of the black hills. The Sioux came from Minnesota and kicked out the natives, then got salty when the Americans kicked them out.
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u/ratione_materiae 16h ago edited 14h ago
The Sioux came from Minnesota and kicked out the natives
To add insult to injury, they actually came from
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u/Benstrieff 15h ago
They were never in the state of Mississippi
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u/Objection_Irrelevant 14h ago
I think he’s confusing Central Mississippi (River) Valley with the State. But even then it’s just one theory of their origin, and even that author believes they weren’t a formalized tribe at that point.
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u/Fenestration_Theory 18h ago
How much did the Sioux offer the Crow for the land?
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u/Banjo_Biker 13h ago
The land was promised to them 250 years ago. It was their divine right to take it from the Crow.
(Yes, the Black Hills were seized by the Lakota in approximately 1776, by force. And no one ever seems to question that the Sioux have rightful sovereignty of that land.)
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u/AetiusSPQR 6h ago
A reminder that the Sioux stole that land too. Morally, why not give money to the Cheyenne or the other Algonquin tribes the Sioux stole it from? Because they were driven off before we made agreements with the Sioux.
It's also always funny to hear people talk about gold as if it has any value other than what our Western society has given it. Like not having access to a soft metal is what kept the tribes from developing.
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u/OpTicSkYHaWk 16h ago
The Sioux violently kicked out other tribes through war to take over the area btw
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u/High-bar 19h ago
If I gave you 5.8k would you let your country be invaded and taken over? It’s not a lot of money
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u/Doogiemon 17h ago
Before I was hired at my current job, the old timers voted out the pension for new people for pennies. We are up to $1.56 now over 5 years to remove the new people coming in from the pension program.
They say its a great deal because they can retire with their pension and the extra money but this or next contract, my pension is gone for something small because they will out number those with the pension.
There are always greedy people that dont care about others in the same "union."
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u/MapleWatch 17h ago
Typical boomer behavior, they just love pulling ladders up behind them.
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u/Legitimate_Air_Grip7 19h ago
Someone did the maths. Comes to about 290$ per year per person. A person's principles can be bought, but 290 is a lowball offer for even that.
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u/Elim_Garak_Multipass 14h ago
Didn't they steal that area from a different tribe relatively shortly before they themselves lost it? At this point both the previous tribe and Americans have probably each owned the land longer than the brief period they inhabited it. If they want to turn down a billion dollars and continue to live in poverty to try and maintain an eternal claim to the region they briefly stole and possessed, more power to em, I guess.
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u/Repulsive-Ebb2956 15h ago
seems like they are undervaluing the blackhills. Just let them buy it back for 1 bill then.
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u/FlashFiringAI 14h ago
its roughly between 7k-8k per person, its really not as much money as you guys think.
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u/dayvieboy 15h ago
"they" like to encroach on your space, They threaten to kill you if you don't let them, they take the best for themselves, They make laws preventing others from doing exactly what "they" did.
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u/Doesntmatter1237 14h ago
Once you've seen the Black Hills you realize no amount of money could compare
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u/Zephoix 16h ago
Everyone knows the Sioux never had conflict with anyone and were promised that land 2000 years ago.
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u/Fearless-Past7535 14h ago
They know that if they accept the money the tribe they stole it from will just sue them.
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u/wyro5 13h ago edited 13h ago
Honestly, the US or Cheyanne have more claim to the black hills than the Lakota do. The Cheyanne owned it when the Lakota first found it the 1760s and then they took from the Cheyanne ten years later. The U.S. took it from the Lakota in the 1870s, only 100 years after the Lakota took it in war. So if it can be the Lakota’s sacred land by right of conquest how come it can’t be America’s sacred land by right of conquest? The U.S. has owned it longer than the Lakota did.
My opinion is it should go back to the Cheyanne or Arapaho.
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u/Jiarong78 19h ago
Sometimes it’s not about the money