The resources of the Black Hills alone — the gold, the timber, the water, the tourism value — had enriched South Dakota and private investors for a century.

The people for whom those resources had been promised under the treaty had received none of that benefit.

When the judgment fund became available in 1980, the argument for collecting it had an immediate practical dimension that is easy to understand.

Communities with the conditions described above, told that more than $100 million was available if they chose to collect it, faced a real question about what the refusal of that money actually meant for the living people on those reservations.

The tribal governments that maintained the position of refusal were aware of this tension.

The decision was not made in ignorance of what the money might do.