The Structure Of The Problem — Why This Is Not Simply A Negotiation

By the 1990s, the Black Hills dispute had been transformed by the accumulation of decades into something more complex than a bilateral negotiation over terms.

The fund itself had become a symbol — and not the same symbol to all parties.

To some observers, the growing balance represented irrationality: a sum of money that could do enormous good for Sioux communities, communities experiencing severe poverty and limited economic opportunity, sitting unused because of a political position that could not actually achieve what it claimed to want.

This view was articulated, carefully, by people who were not hostile to the Sioux claim.

Ross Swimmer, who served as special trustee for American Indians and was himself Cherokee, said in a 2011 interview: “They didn’t want the money.