United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

No. 79-639. Argued March 24, 1980. Decided June 30, 1980. 448 U.S. 371.

D

We next examine the factual findings made by the Court of Claims, which led it to the conclusion that the 1877 Act effected a taking.

First, the Court found that

"[t]he only item of "consideration" that possibly could be viewed as showing an attempt by Congress to give the Sioux the "full value" of the land the government took from them was the requirement to furnish them with rations until they became self-sufficient" 220 Ct.Cl. at 458, 601 F.2d at 1166.

This finding is fully supported by the record, and the Government does not seriously contend otherwise.{31} [448 U.S. 418]

Second, the court found, after engaging in an exhaustive review of the historical record, that neither the Manypenny Commission, nor the congressional Committees that approved the 1877 Act, nor the individual legislators who spoke on its behalf on the floor of Congress ever indicated a belief that the Government's obligation to provide the Sioux with rations constituted a fair equivalent for the value of the Black Hills and the additional property rights the Indians were forced to [448 U.S. 419] surrender. See id. at 458-462, 601 F.2d at 1166-1168.

This finding is unchallenged by the Government.

A third finding lending some weight to the Court's legal conclusion was that the conditions placed by the Government on the Sioux' entitlement to rations, see n. 14, supra,

"further show that the government's undertaking to furnish rations to the Indians until they could support themselves did not reflect a congressional decision that the value of the rations was the equivalent of the land the Indians were giving up, but instead was an attempt to coerce the Sioux into capitulating to congressional demands" 220 Ct.Cl. at 461, 601 F.2d at 1168.

We might add only that this finding is fully consistent with similar observations made by this Court nearly a century ago in an analogous case.

In Choctaw Nation v. United States, 119 U.S. 1, 35 (1886), the Court held, over objections by the Government, that an earlier award made by the Senate on an Indian tribe's treaty claim "was fair, just, and equitable." The treaty at issue had called for the removal of the Choctaw Nation from treaty-protected lands in exchange for payments for the tribe's subsistence for one year, payments for cattle and improvements on the new reservation, an annuity of $ 20,000 for 20 years commencing upon removal, and the provision of educational and agricultural services. Id. at 38.

Some years thereafter, the Senate had awarded the Indians a substantial recovery based on the latter treaty's failure to compensate the Choctaw for the lands they had ceded. Congress later enacted a jurisdictional statute which permitted the United States to contest the fairness of the Senate's award as a settlement of the Indian's treaty claim. In rejecting the Government's arguments, and accepting the Senate's award as "furnish[ing] the nearest approximation to the justice and right of the case," id. at 35, this Court observed:

"It is notorious as a historical fact, as it abundantly appears from the record in this case, that great pressure [448 U.S. 420] had to be brought to bear upon the Indians to effect their removal, and the whole treaty was evidently and purposely executed not so much to secure to the Indians the rights for which they had stipulated as to effectuate the policy of the United States in regard to their removal. The most noticeable thing, upon a careful consideration of the terms of this treaty, is that no money consideration is promised or paid for a cession of lands, the beneficial ownership of which is assumed to reside in the Choctaw Nation, and computed to amount to over ten millions of acres" Id. at 37-38.

As for the payments that had been made to the Indians in order to induce them to remove themselves from their treaty lands, the Court, in words we find applicable to the 1877 Act, concluded:

"It is nowhere expressed in the treaty that these payments are to be made as the price of the lands ceded; and they are all only such expenditures as the government of the United States could well afford to incur for the mere purpose of executing its policy in reference to the removal of the Indians to their new homes. As a consideration for the value of the lands ceded by the treaty, they must be regarded as a meagre pittance" Id. at 38.

These conclusions, in light of the historical background to the opening of the Black Hills for settlement, see Part I, supra, seem fully applicable to Congress' decision to remove the Sioux from that valuable tract of land and to extinguish their off-reservation hunting rights. Finally, the Court of Claims rejected the Government's contention that the fact that it subsequently had spent at least $43 million on rations for the Sioux (over the course of three-quarters of a century) established that the 1877 Act was an act of guardianship taken in the Sioux' best interest. The court concluded:

"The critical inquiry is what Congress [448 U.S. 421] did -- and how it viewed the obligation it was assuming -- at the time it acquired the land, and not how much it ultimately cost the United States to fulfill the obligation" 220 Ct.Cl. at 462, 601 F.2d at 1168.

It found no basis for believing that Congress, in 1877, anticipated that it would take the Sioux such a lengthy period of time to become self-sufficient, or that the fulfillment of the Government's obligation to feed the Sioux would entail the large expenditures ultimately made on their behalf. Ibid.

We find no basis on which to question the legal standard applied by the Court of Claims, or the findings it reached, concerning Congress' decision to provide the Sioux with rations.

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