Black Hills Agreement (Act of February 28, 1877), Lakota

What happened

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty set apart the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, and said no cession would be valid without the signatures of at least three fourths of adult male Sioux. The Supreme Court says that in 1874 an Army expedition under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer confirmed gold in the Hills, and the discovery was widely reported.

In 1876 commissioners led by George W. Manypenny presented the Sioux and the Northern Arapaho and Cheyenne with an agreement dated September 23, 1876. Article 1 cut the reservation's northern and western boundaries. The Indians ceded all territory outside it, "including all privileges of hunting." In return the United States promised aid, schools and subsistence rations. The Supreme Court says only 10 percent of adult male Sioux signed it, and that it traded their rights to the Black Hills and hunting land for rations "for as long as they would be needed."

Congress ratified it by the Act of February 28, 1877 (19 Stat. 254). The Act did not confirm Article 4, which called for removal to Indian Territory, and said nothing in it authorized moving the Sioux there.

In 1980 the Supreme Court called the Act, in effect, an abrogation of the Fort Laramie Treaty and held it a taking. It affirmed an award of interest on $17.1 million, the 1877 market value of the Black Hills. The Court quoted the Court of Claims on "the pattern of duress practiced by the Government on the starving Sioux."

Good to know. The phrase "pattern of duress" is the finding of the Court of Claims, as quoted by the Supreme Court.

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