The Black Hills dispute has not ended because the people for whom it is not historical but present have continued to make it present.

The billion dollars in the Treasury is the federal government’s contribution to keeping the question present — the monetary equivalent of an I.O.U. that has been offered and declined, growing in value, marking time until a resolution comes.

When that resolution comes, if it comes, it will need to address what the money cannot address: the land itself, and the relationship between the Lakota people and the Hills that rise dark from the plains of South Dakota, the hills that were promised to them in 1868, taken from them in 1877, and acknowledged as taken — but not returned — in 1980.

The story of the Black Hills is a story that has not yet reached its conclusion.

It is being continued.

What The Headline Obscures — And What The Full Story Reveals