Throughout American history, the United States has taken over lands claimed by Indians without consulting the peoples who lived there.
As a result, in the twentieth century many Native Americans took the United States to court, insisting that the country give them their land back or at least pay them fairly for it.
Some Indian land claims have been resolved, but many more remain pending. One still in the courts is the Lakota Sioux’s campaign for the return of the Black Hills, an area that to them is sacred.
In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court offered the Lakota more than $100 million to compensate them for the Black Hills region. But the Lakota refused to take the money.
They want nothing less than the land itself and continue their legal battle for it.