Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP)

What happened

The Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) was founded in 1991 by the Western Shoshone National Council. A University of Nevada, Reno library article says it was created to support Carrie and Mary Dann when the Bureau of Land Management moved to confiscate their livestock. The sisters grazed their animals on what they regarded as unceded Western Shoshone homelands and, as a protest, did not pay the Bureau's grazing fees. The article calls Carrie Dann, who died on January 1, 2021 at her home in Crescent Valley, Nevada, a co-founder of the Project.

The library describes the Project's mission as affirming Western Shoshone jurisdiction over Western Shoshone ancestral homelands by protecting, preserving and restoring Shoshone rights and lands. It says the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley is the treaty at issue and that the sisters' decades-long legal fight reached the U.S. Supreme Court and the United Nations. The Project's records now sit in the University Libraries' Special Collections.

The Supreme Court case was United States v. Dann, decided February 20, 1985. The Court held that "payment" of the Indian Claims Commission award occurred when the funds were placed by the United States into a Treasury account for the Tribe.

The web address wsdp.org serves an unrelated site. The Project has no known working website, tax status or donation path.

Good to know. The website wsdp.org belongs to an unrelated blog, not this group. The meaning of the Treaty of Ruby Valley is disputed: Western Shoshone advocates reject the court ruling that payment of a claims award ended their title.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error