The Lakota people themselves have been clear and articulate about what Paha Sapa means to them, and they have been equally clear about the political and legal dimensions of what they are demanding.

Those dimensions are worth understanding in full.

The beginning of the modern legal story is 1868.

What The Treaty Said — And Why The Words Mattered

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 is the foundational document of the Black Hills legal dispute.

It was signed in April and May of 1868, at the military post at Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming, by representatives of the United States government and by leaders of the Sioux Nation and their allies.