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The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an
agreement between the United States and the Lakota
nation, signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the
Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota
ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and
hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and
Montana. The Powder River Country was to be
henceforth closed to all whites. The treaty ended
Red Cloud's War.
The treaty included articles intended to "ensure the
civilization" of the Lakota; financial incentives
for them to farm land and become competitive - and
stipulations that minors should be provided with an
"English education" at a "mission building". To this
end the US government included in the treaty that
white teachers, blacksmiths and a farmer, a miller,
a carpenter, an engineer and a government agent
should take up residence within the reservation.
Repeated violations of the otherwise exclusive
rights to the land by gold prospectors led to the
Black Hills War. The U.S. government seized the
Black Hills land in 1877 in violation of the treaty.
More than a century later, the Sioux nation won a
victory in court. On June 30, 1980, in United States
v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371, the United
States Supreme Court upheld an award of $17.5
million for the market value of the land in 1877,
along with 103 years worth of interest at 5 percent,
for and additional $105 million.
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