Their position — maintained consistently through tribal resolutions from every component Sioux tribe — was that the Black Hills were not for sale, that the legal remedy for an unconstitutional taking was the return of the taken property, and that accepting money would legitimize the transaction that had taken the land.

The trust fund that holds the refused compensation has grown with compound interest for more than four decades.

It now exceeds $1 billion.

It sits unclaimed in the U.S.

Treasury.

Red Cloud’s signature on the 1868 treaty created the legal foundation for this claim.

The treaty he insisted on verifying — refusing to sign until the forts were actually gone — is the document that established the specific legal obligations that the Supreme Court confirmed and that the Sioux Nation is still seeking to have honored.

The war that most Americans have never been taught about created the legal basis for a billion-dollar claim that is still pending.