Mario Gonzalez. Courtesy photo
Native Sun News interviews attorney Mario Gonzalez about Black Hills Claims Settlement
By Native Sun News Staff
www.nsweekly.com NATIVE SUN NEWS: It’s been 36 years since you filed the federal court case to stop the payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Many people who weren't born or were small children then, are very misinformed about the Black Hills Claim. Can you explain the legal process that led up to the 1980 Supreme Court case? MARIO GONZALEZ: Under the 1946 Indian Claims Commission Act, the Sioux tribes were compelled to file their treaty land claims within 5 years. The Commission, however, was only authorized to award monetary compensation for the lands. The Sioux tribes filed their treaty land claims in the ICC as Docket 74 in 1951. Twenty-three years later, in 1974, the ICC awarded the Sioux tribe $102 million for the Black Hills. The Court of Claims, however, dismissed the $102 million award on appeal in 1975. So there was no Black Hills case in court from 1975 to 1978. In 1978, the tribe’s claims attorneys got Congress to pass a Special Jurisdictional Act that authorized the Court of Claims to hear the Black Hills Claim. The Court of Claims heard the case de novo and affirmed the 1974 ICC award for $102 million, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed it on June 30, 1980. NSN: Why did the Oglala Sioux Tribe file its own Black Hills Claim in 1980? MG: Many Indian tribes lost title to their treaty lands to the United States, not in the 1800s, but in the 1900s when they were paid monetary compensation for their lands through the Indian Claims Commission. The Oglala Sioux Tribe was concerned that if it was paid for the Black Hills after the June 30, 1980 Supreme Court case, it would forever lose its treaty title to the Black Hills. The Tribe authorized me to take whatever action was necessary to protect its interests. So I filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court at Rapid City on July 18, 1980, to quiet title to all the land confiscated by the 1877 Black Hills Act, plus $11 billion in damages for the severance and removal of non-renewable resources, gold, silver, etc., and for denying the Tribe access and use of the Black Hills for over 100 years. (Mario Gonzalez can be reached at Gnzlaw@aol.com)
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